Biometrics' Help to Address Crime, Shape Identification, Security - Coursework Example

HOW BIOMETRICS HAS HELPED ADDRESS CRIME, SHAPE IDENTIFICATION, SECURITY, AND PRIVACY By and University Name City, State Date of Submission Introduction It is no doubt that technology has had a tremendous development in the past few years. In the most recent years, there has been an increasing need to maintain modes of identification, improve on security, privacy, and combat crime. Something notable today is the increased computerization and level of automation in almost every area of societal operations. Since crime is becoming more and more sophisticated, it is required that security is also improved. The increased number of gadgets such as smartphones that are becoming another part of people’s worlds require that the privacy in the gadgets is maintained. To be able to achieve the highest level of privacy, for example, access needs to be limited by the most personal characteristics that make us. The use of biometrics has been very beneficial to the society. It has brought many improvements in areas such as identification, security, privacy, and in combatting crime. A Brief View on Biometrics Simply put, biometrics refer to the metrics that relate to human characteristics. Often known as realistic authentication, it is used in computer science where it acts as a form of identification and access control. Biometrics are also used in surveillance where it helps identify people in groups. In general, biometrics are used to identify distinctive, measurable characteristics that are used to describe individuals. Usually, biometrics are divided into two, those who measure physiological, and those measuring behavioral characteristics. Physiological characteristics measure the ‘physical’ characteristics of the body that relate to its shape. Some of these features include fingerprint, face recognition, palm veins, DNA, hand geometry, iris recognition, odor, and retina (Magnet 2011). Behavioral characteristics, on the other hand, are related to the pattern of behavior of an individual. Some of these include gait, typing rhythm, and voice. Traditionally, means of access control involved the use of identification systems that were token-based, use of passports or driver’s license, knowledge-based identification systems for example passwords or use of personal identification number. Biometrics are more reliable as they are unique to the persons using them. For example, every person on the planet has a unique fingerprint. This means that they can never pass for everyone else. A driver’s license, on the other hand, can be forged. The use of passwords seems to be secure, but they can be hacked. A password can also be shared among a group which means that privacy cannot be guaranteed in its use. More people are supporting the use of biometrics. Still, its use raises a lot of ethical questions as there are those skeptical of where such collected information will ultimately be used. Identification The need for identification of people in the society probably surpasses everything else any government strives to do. Initially, people we identified through the use of passports and so on. Sometime later, governments such as those in Europe and North America started using fingerprints to identify the people. Today, the increased rollout of biometric ID systems holds quite some promise. In any case, there are hundreds of millions of people who lack formal identification and significant obstacle to participation in society. Without proper identification, it is hard to vote, register land or even get a bank account, leave alone accessing loans. Collection of taxes is also very difficult for governments who have no identification for the residents. Some countries such as India, for example, have rolled out some of the most sophisticated identification systems. India’s Universal ID program has scanned irises of over 450 million unregistered citizens winning many plaudits (Gelb & Clark 2013). While most people from the developing world, for example, would want to be identified by the governments due to the benefits associated with it, developed countries have a different story. In the United States and Europe, the worry is not that the government does not know who an individual is, but that it knows too much. Questions about who has the right to collect another person’s data, accesses the data, decides how the data is used, and what would happen in the case where security failed plague the whole biometric issue. Crime It is no doubt that crime is one of the disturbing issues in the society and one that is critical to combat. For police officers and security agents to be able to fight delinquency, they need security systems that would identify everybody that has participated in a crime. Collected biometric information is precious in running forensics and helps nail criminals that had fled a crime scene by the time investigators got to the location. There are several of an individual’s physical attributes that help identify a person who had participated in committing a given felony. In a situation where there were cameras that captured a criminal activity, for example, in the case of bank robbery, the use of the iris as an identification is normally among the most efficient. In such situation, a robber shows up armed in a bank and puts a mask on in that facial recognition would not work. If the person had looked at the camera, then a picture taken of the eyes helps in the identification process, and every person on the planet has unique irises (He et al. 2009). In the case of rape, it is unlikely that there is a camera present in the crime scene. Other collectible evidence includes body hairs, fingerprints and so on which are also very efficient in identifying a criminal. If the criminal were skillful enough to avoid looking at the camera and had gloves on to avoid leaving fingerprints, his/her gait could be used to identify them. This shoes that biometrics have significantly revolutionized combating crime and, therefore, made the society a better place. Security One of the avenues that insurgents and terrorists exploit is anonymity as it protects them giving them operational advantage. If this anonymity could be stripped away, it puts them at a disadvantage whether they operate in the US, Iraq, Somalia or Europe (Baldaccini 2008). Biometric technology is best equipped to give this as it helps provide new types of digital identity data, new and very efficient ways to collect the data, and new opportunities to use it. For example, screening visitors while entering a country helps reduce chances of terrorists entering the country. While biometrics offers the best tools to verify identities of people nationwide and, therefore, enhance the security of a country, they also raise concerns in terms of liberty implication. Biometric technologies help realize security, but they should also be balanced with protection of privacy (Wayman et al. 2005). There are also some other concerns in relation to security offered by biometrics. Initially, people relied on personal identification numbers (PIN numbers) and passwords. They work and are very efficient in securing data. Biometrics, on the other hand, are also as effective. Unlike passwords, people expose their biometrics everywhere they go (Xiao 2005). Photos capturing their irises are everywhere, they leave fingerprints everywhere, and their gait recorded by many cameras even in the streets. This means that for people who would want to use the information maliciously, they can use it. Lifting of fingerprints is common and the greatest threat is if a person has ‘hacked’ a given biometric, then there is no way the owner can change it. In other words, the passwords may be a little better. If a Facebook account was hacked, the owner would only need to change the password. Biometrics, on the other hand, cannot be modified or changed. Privacy Computer science’s use of biometric has seen privacy elevated to a higher level in world’s present time. The fact that one’s metrics can never be otherwise or bleach uniqueness has raised people’s confidence in biometric identifications. People’s confidence and trust they have built upon this identification mode can stand the answer as to why it has been accepted and assimilated by most of the world’s populated countries such as India and USA. Many people, if not all, covet privacy for their personal properties and would die to have it protected. The privacy’s most used biometrics includes; fingerprints, face recognition, iris recognition and hand geometry. Presently, several phone’s manufacturers have assimilated the use of biometric identification. This is evident by the way in which phones are unlocked. The phone’s locking and unlocking system has to identify owner’s fingerprints and some of them facial identity to execute a command (Shi et al. 2011). Apple and Samsung are some of the manufacturers of phones with such ability. This ensures effective privacy to one’s gadget. Hand geometry provides privacy as one cannot have an entry in restricted area such as child day cares, Olympic arenas and so on. However, biometric identification may turn an enemy to a person’s privacy in an incidence where one’s information may be leaked intentionally or accidentally to a crowd of people. For instance, where an individuals information about disordered traits is made public. The case of the government acquiring private information is what bothers people even more (Wayman et al. 2005). Conclusion The above discussion outlines some of the areas that biometrics has helped shape. There has been tremendous development in security, identification, privacy, and fight against crime. In identification, states can know exactly how many people they should be collecting tax from. In fighting crime, bank robbers, for example, are identified through the use of the iris and so on. People who have committed murder could be tracked if they left traces of their DNA at the crime scene. With such improvement in biometrics, more security measures and other important issues such as privacy can be achieved. References Baldaccini, A. (2008). Counter-terrorism and the EU strategy for border security: Framing suspects with biometric documents and databases. European Journal of Migration and Law, 10(1), 31-49. Gelb, A., & Clark, J. (2013). Performance Lessons from India’s Universal Identification Program. Center for Development, Policy Paper, 20. He, Z., Tan, T., Sun, Z., & Qiu, X. (2009). Toward accurate and fast iris segmentation for iris biometrics. Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on, 31(9), 1670-1684. Magnet, S. (2011). When biometrics fail: Gender, race, and the technology of identity. Duke University Press. Shi, W., Yang, J., Jiang, Y., Yang, F., & Xiong, Y. (2011, October). Senguard: Passive user identification on smartphones using multiple sensors. In Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), 2011 IEEE 7th International Conference on (pp. 141-148). IEEE. Wayman, J. L., Jain, A. K., Maltoni, D., & Maio, D. (2005). Biometric systems: technology, design and performance evaluation. Springer Science & Business Media. Xiao, Q. (2005, June). Security issues in biometric authentication. In Information Assurance Workshop, 2005. IAW05. Proceedings from the Sixth Annual IEEE SMC (pp. 8-13). IEEE. Read More