{"id":359,"date":"2003-11-18T16:32:19","date_gmt":"2003-11-18T21:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/2003\/11\/biometric-id-cards-for-britain\/"},"modified":"2003-11-18T16:32:19","modified_gmt":"2003-11-18T21:32:19","slug":"biometric-id-cards-for-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/2003\/11\/biometric-id-cards-for-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"biometric id cards for britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

earlier this month, british home secretary david blunkett released<\/a> a lot of information on the new british id proposal.<\/p>\n

great britain will assemble a database of biometric information using fingerprints, iris scans and face maps. once there’s a big fat database with all this stuff, they’ll roll out new id cards.<\/p>\n

i have big issues with biometrics. it’s something i keep saying, but the biggest problem i have with biometric-based identity is that once the chosen biometric is compromised (and they will be compromised<\/a>), there’s no way to “revoke” the key.<\/p>\n

let’s say, for example, that my fingerprint is used in an id scheme. and let’s further say that i’m careless about where i put my fingers, and i leave little oily fingerprints all over the world. some nice gentleman comes along and lifts one, and is off to the races (perhaps, literally). a physical object – like a card is easy enough to replace, and any system reading the card can be flagged so that the “lost or stolen” card is invalid, but my fingers are a harder issue. so now what? do i go to the home office and ask for replacement fingers replacement eyeballs and a new face?<\/p>\n

there’s also the related issue of people who, through the natural variety and horrible accidents that accompany life as a human, aren’t equipped with recognizable fingers, eyeballs or faces.<\/p>\n

both of these cases illustrate that any system that relies on biometrics must also have a “backup” mechanism available – something that works for people with compromised fingers, or no fingers at all. and if you’re going to build this huge infrastructure to support biometric ids, and it has to have an accompanying huge infrastructure to support non-biometric ids for all the exceptions in the world, then why would you build both? wouldn’t it be more economic to build the non-biometric system and use it for everyone?<\/p>\n

“using multiple identities is one of the most common practices of those involved in terrorist activity.” of course, what this ignores is that we all use multiple identities all the time. but that’s some deeper philosophy than i want to get into right now.<\/p>\n

people<\/a> much smarter than i can probably shed more light on the technical esoterica.<\/p>\n

for now, watch your fingers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

earlier this month, british home secretary david blunkett released a lot of information on the new british id proposal. great britain will assemble a database of biometric information using fingerprints, iris scans and face maps. once there’s a big fat database with all this stuff, they’ll roll out new id cards. i have big issues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}