Are you reading this on your phone? Did you just use your fingerprint to sign in? Remember when that seemed futuristic?
It wasn’t that long ago, in truth. It seems that in just a few years biometrics has gone from a niche concern to being woven into many of the products we take for granted. Increasingly, our devices take measurements, from our fingerprints to our facial expressions, and use them for a variety of purposes.
Smartphones are just the most obvious example, of course. Perhaps the biggest innovator in this space has been Apple integrating biometric data in the form of fingerprint scanning and now facial recognition.
Many stores now use facial recognition technology, and even some gun safes use biometricss. Using your face or finger to unlock your safe, or your phone, is certainly convenient. However, the rise of biometrics gives rise to some tricky questions about how this data should be used and shared.
The Uses Of Biometric Data
Biometric data is now collected by a vast variety of companies and devices. A survey of British retail chains found that more than 25% of these stores are now using facial recognition software to log when customers visit, and what they buy.
Some companies are going further. The Bank Of New Zealand has recently experimented with using facial recognition techniques to record their customers‘ reactions to various financial scenarios. Customers who have agreed to take part in their trial have their emotional reactions to various scenarios filmed, and software is able to log their emotional reactions. The bank hopes that through this research they will be able to better ascertain how emotions inform financial decisions.
The same techniques are also making their way into marketing and advertising. It is now common for members of focus groups to have their facial expressions read by a computer, and then analyzed. Such software is able to read emotions more quickly and accurately than humans are able to, and also analyze data objectively to assess the efficacy of a particular ad campaign.
And then we have the more everyday uses of biometric data. I don’t know about you, but I always find it slightly creepy when Facebook is able to identify my friends’ faces. I read that, as I write, the algorithm used to do this is already 97% accurate, and also that Facebook is working on expanding the system so that it can identify people through hair, posture, body, or clothing.
The Dangers
This move toward biometrics presents huge opportunities, of course. However, it also gives rise to some serious questions about how this data is to be used.
In some ways, biometric data is just like any other form of Big Data and comes with the same levels of risk and reward. However, the fact that biometric data is inherently linked to an individual’s body and identity makes it more controversial than other forms of big data.
This is especially well illustrated by the healthcare sector. Healthcare providers are now collecting huge amounts of biometric data and using this in very creative ways. By incorporating this data into larger data structures, some providers are now able to predict the onset of certain diseases before they occur. However, data on health conditions can be very sensitive, and not many people are happy for it to be shared with other companies and organizations.
This is an issue that also affects the more everyday uses of biometrics. By singing into your phone, are you implicitly giving your consent for your biometric data to be shared with other companies? In some circumstances, consent to collect biometric data is easily handled, as in the case of focus groups or other closed environments. However, there is currently no need for retailers to get consent from shoppers to use facial recognition software.
Some people are willing to give up their data in order to streamline or improve the services they receive, and some are not. Which camp you fall into seems to be more reliant on your age than anything else “ young people are much more relaxed about having their biometric data shared around.
These issues are not ones that are likely to be resolved soon, and the lesson for companies already collecting biometric data is clear “ if you are in doubt about the legality of collecting or selling this data, take immediate legal advice. Though the law has been relatively slow to catch on to the implications of biometric data, bills are now appearing which will prevent businesses from selling this data.
