CSC 379:Week 4, Group 4

Biometrics and Privacy of Genetic Data

A concern with ID cards that contain biometric information is that once one is stolen, it would be more difficult for someone to reclaim their identity as the nature of the representation of biometric data that would be used would be something that would not change over a person’s lifetime (e.g. fingerprints or eye-scan)[1]. Thus for technologies that rely solely on the biometric data contained within the IDs to establish identity, once a card is stolen, ones “identity” may never be able to be reclaimed.

Ethical issues related to privacy of genetic data follow closely with this topic since it suffers from similar issues as biometrics, although genetic data is much more invasive to ones privacy as society becomes more able to interpret it. There have been discussions of a constitutional amendment to prohibit genetic discrimination. If ones genetic information is made available, or information derived from, it opens the person to an increased threat of discrimination (jobs, insurance, social), as well as other threats to privacy not yet realized, but that will likely be realized within ones lifetime as there becomes a greater capability to interpret genetic data.

What types of protections should be afforded to biometric data compared to other types of data? For genetic data? Should biometric/genetic data be incorporated into various technology from ID cards to diagnostic equipment? Examine ethical issues related storage and use.

Resources

Relevant External Links:

The National Science and Technology Council some good resources related to biometrics and privacy issues.

• Introduction to Biometrics
• Biometrics and Privacy

Wikipedia's article on biometrics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics

EFF has an introduction to some concerns voiced about biometrics: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/biometrics/

Relevant Class Website Links:

• http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/privacy/web/identity/