Editing Biometrics (section)

===Human dignity===
Biometrics have been considered also instrumental to the development of state authority<ref>Breckenridge K. (2005). "[https://wiser.wits.ac.za/sites/default/files/Breckenridge%20-%202005%20-%20The%20Biometric%20State%20The%20promise%20and%20peril%20of%20digi.pdf The Biometric State: The Promise and Peril of Digital Government in the New South Africa]". ''Journal of Southern African Studies'', 31:2, 267–82</ref> (to put it in Foucauldian terms, of [[discipline]] and [[biopower]]<ref>Epstein C. (2007), "[https://academic.oup.com/ips/article-abstract/1/2/149/1799677 Guilty Bodies, Productive Bodies, Destructive Bodies: Crossing the Biometric Borders]". ''International Political Sociology'', 1:2, 149–64</ref>). By turning the human subject into a collection of biometric parameters, biometrics would dehumanize the person,<ref>Pugliese J. (2010), ''Biometrics: Bodies, Technologies, Biopolitics.'' New York: Routledge</ref> infringe bodily integrity, and, ultimately, offend human dignity.<ref>French National Consultative Ethics Committee for Health and Life Sciences (2007), Opinion N° 98, [http://www.ccne-ethique.fr/en/publications/biometrics-identifying-data-and-human-rights#.VenJ87TDU5E "Biometrics, identifying data and human rights"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923201410/http://www.ccne-ethique.fr/en/publications/biometrics-identifying-data-and-human-rights |date=23 September 2015 }}</ref>

In a well-known case,<ref>Agamben, G. (2008). "No to bio-political tattooing". ''Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies'', 5(2), 201–202. Reproduced from Le Monde (10 January 2004).</ref> Italian philosopher [[Giorgio Agamben]] refused to enter the United States in protest at the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator (US-VISIT) program's requirement for visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed. Agamben argued that gathering of biometric data is a form of bio-political tattooing, akin to the tattooing of Jews during the Holocaust. According to Agamben, biometrics turn the human persona into a bare body. Agamben refers to the two words used by Ancient Greeks for indicating "life", ''zoe'', which is the life common to animals and humans, just life; and ''bios'', which is life in the human context, with meanings and purposes. Agamben envisages the reduction to bare bodies for the whole humanity.<ref>Agamben G.(1998), ''Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life''. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press</ref> For him, a new bio-political relationship between citizens and the state is turning citizens into pure biological life (''zoe'') depriving them from their humanity (''bios''); and biometrics would herald this new world.

In [https://www.dukeupress.edu/dark-matters Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness], [[surveillance]] scholar [[Simone Browne (sociologist)|Simone Browne]] formulates a similar critique as Agamben, citing a recent study<ref name="Gao 169–178">{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221383488|chapter=Face Gender Classification on Consumer Images in a Multiethnic Environment|last1=Gao|first1=Wei|last2=Ai|first2=Haizhou|pages=169–178|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-01793-3_18|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009123149/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221383488_Face_Gender_Classification_on_Consumer_Images_in_a_Multiethnic_Environment|archive-date=9 October 2016|title=Advances in Biometrics|volume=5558|series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science|year=2009|isbn=978-3-642-01792-6|s2cid=17596655 }}</ref> relating to biometrics [[Research and development|R&D]] that found that the gender classification system being researched "is inclined to classify Africans as males and [[Mongoloid]]s as females."<ref name="Gao 169–178"/> Consequently, Browne argues that the conception of an objective biometric technology is difficult if such systems are subjectively designed, and are vulnerable to cause errors as described in the study above. The stark expansion of biometric technologies in both the public and private sector magnifies this concern. The increasing [[commodification]] of biometrics by the private sector adds to this danger of loss of human value. Indeed, corporations value the biometric characteristics more than the individuals value them.<ref>{{Cite journal|url = https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=25+Fordham+Intell.+Prop.+Media+%26+Ent.+L.J.+831&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=a4b55d68b2513a0c985a62bb9064501d|title = Biometric Boom: How the private sector Commodifies Human characteristics|last = Walker|first = Elizabeth|date = 2015|journal = Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170120172630/https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay|archive-date = 20 January 2017|access-date = 1 May 2017}}</ref> Browne goes on to suggest that modern society should incorporate a "biometric consciousness" that "entails informed public debate around these technologies and their application, and accountability by the state and the private sector, where the ownership of and access to one's own body data and other intellectual property that is generated from one's body data must be understood as a right."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness|last=Browne|first=Simone|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2015|pages=116}}</ref>

Other scholars<ref>Mordini, E; Massari, S. (2008), "Body, Biometrics and Identity" ''Bioethics'', 22, 9:488</ref> have emphasized, however, that the globalized world is confronted with a huge mass of people with weak or absent civil identities. Most developing countries have weak and unreliable documents and the poorer people in these countries do not have even those unreliable documents.<ref>UNICEF, [http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58010.html Birth Registration] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906150500/http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58010.html |date=6 September 2015 }}</ref> Without certified personal identities, there is no certainty of right, no civil liberty.<ref>Dahan M., Gelb A. (2015) [http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/07/24849193/role-identification-post-2015-development-agenda "The Role of Identification in the Post-2015 Development Agenda"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150920050041/http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/07/24849193/role-identification-post-2015-development-agenda |date=20 September 2015 }} – World Bank Working Paper No. 98294 08/2015;</ref> One can claim his rights, including the right to refuse to be identified, only if he is an identifiable subject, if he has a public identity. In such a sense, biometrics could play a pivotal role in supporting and promoting respect for human dignity and fundamental rights.<ref>Mordini E, Rebera A (2011) "No Identification Without Representation: Constraints on the Use of Biometric Identification Systems". ''Review of Policy Research'', 29, 1: 5–20</ref>