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 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
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JULY 22, 2003
Why Biometrics Is No Magic Bullet This promising ID technology works best in controlled situations -- which are hardly the norm in the real world In Afghanistan, the U.N. uses an iris-scanning system to identify refugees returning from Pakistan to ensure that they don't double-dip on one-time aid grants. In Pinellas County, Fla., police use facial-recognition technology to record the newly arrested so they can be more easily identified if they're nabbed again. At Counterpane Internet Security in Mountain View, Calif., hand-geometry readers match the hands of people seeking to enter key areas with those on a list of Counterpane employees. All three are examples of relatively successful uses of biometric technologies. At the same time, though, numerous biometric pilot projects around the country and the world have come up short. Many casinos have facial-recognition systems to spot known card counters but rarely use them due to the high number of false-positive identifications. Plans to use biometrics in national ID cards in the U.S. didn't even pass go before concerned lawmakers scrapped them. And while dozens of airports around the world have installed or are running trials with biometric systems to authenticate IDs for airline employees and even passengers, how many of these systems remain in use is an open question, according to Jim Wayman, an engineer and biometrics expert at San Jose State University in California. Witness much-hyped trials of facial-recognition technology in January, 2002, at Palm Beach International Airport. The Palm Beach trial never made it to full installation after the airport decided it wasn't worth the cost. "There has been too much hype of the technologies, and there has been too much hype of the fear of the technologies," says Wayman. LIMITED HOPE. The glass half-empty or half-full is an apt metaphor for the current state of biometrics, an industry with $600 million sales in 2002, according to the International Biometrics Group (IBG) in New York. Nearly two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, biometrics is losing some of its magic-bullet appeal, even among security zealots. Instead, the science and practice of measuring physical characteristics that are unique in each human -- such as the sound of a voice, the shape of a hand, or the geography of a retina -- seem to offer limited but significant hope to those seeking more order in an out-of-control world. Witness the prospects for facial-recognition technology. Suppliers initially promoted it as a means for spotting a terrorist's face in a crowd. The use of such systems to catch wanted criminals at the 2001 Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., rightly stoked privacy fears. Yet, identifying members of al Qaeda on the street has proven to be particularly tough. The National Institute for Technology & Standards has found in tests that facial-recognition systems perform well in controlled situations but that in uncontrolled settings, facial appearances can vary significantly depending on lighting, camera angle, and a number of intangibles. So today, most companies selling this technology emphasize its utility for identifying individuals during more confined activities such as check-cashing, the taking of drivers-license photos, and police bookings.
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