Noncooperative Biometrics: Cross-Jurisdictional Concerns
Mario Savastano Institute of Biostructures and Bioimaging (IBB)/National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Napoli, Italy
Abstract
Biometric surveillance is a particular security methodology based on the integration of video-surveillance and biometrics. It may represent a powerful tool in the context of the continuous fight against serious criminality and terror, but its implementation, in various international scenarios, has also given rise to concerns because of the associated legal, social, and ethical issues. The present chapter aims to investigate some aspects of the biometric surveillance, showing how many of the concerns raised in the past are nowadays characterized by decreased relevance. As a matter of fact, new popular tools such as smartphones and Smart TV are posing threats to our own privacy so high that the apprehension of the biometric surveillance seems now, most likely, completely outdated.
Keywords
Biometric; Face recognition; Biometric surveillance; Territory control; Privacy
10.1 Introduction
On January 28th, 2001, in the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Giant played the 35th Super Bowl, the final game of the US National Football League.
For the record, the Baltimore Ravens defeated the New York Giants but, beyond the result, this Super Bowl should be considered a memorable event for those interested in biometrics.
During this sport competition, in fact, the spectators were the unaware protagonists of probably the first large scale experiment of biometric surveillance.
In practice, surveillance cameras surreptitiously scanned spectators' faces to capture images that were biometrically compared with a computerized database of suspected terrorists and known criminals [1].
The 2001 Super Bowl application is an example of the so-called “biometric surveillance”, a term that efficiently indicates a combination of video-surveillance and biometrics, aiming to recognize the persons of interest in an area under control.
Biometric surveillance is an example of passive biometrics since users passively provide their biometric characteristics. In the case of a covert implementation, the users are said to be noncooperative while in an overt application they may be noncooperative or even uncooperative if camouflages are adopted to hide the biometric characteristics.1
In the Super Bowl of 2001, the system was covert but, as we will see in the continuation of this chapter, overt systems may cause a deterrent effect, generally very effective.
Starting with a description of some general technical, social and legal issues that characterize biometric surveillance, the present chapter will try to highlight how some concerns for privacy raised in its early implementations seem nowadays less significant compared to other threats posed by commonly used technological tools such as mobile phones or smart TV.
10.2 Biometrics for Implementing Biometric Surveillance
Biometric surveillance systems have always been based on face recognition but theoretically other biometric characteristics, such as, for example, those of the iris, could be used.
Iris recognition systems acquire images of an iris while is is being illuminated by light in the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength band (in the range between 700 and 900 nanometers) of the electromagnetic spectrum. As it is well known, such light improves dark iris details.
The distance between the sensor and the eye, in a conventional system, is on the order of tens of centimeters, but already for several years the market has been offerring a new class of biometric systems that are capable of acquiring the characteristics of the iris at a greater distance, even if the subjects are moving.
This could lead to a hypothetical use of iris instead of face recognition for biometric surveillance systems thanks to some features offered by this biometric technique.2
Great attention should be anyway paid to the NIR light. In fact, NIR illuminators may pose safety issues because the eye does not respond to NIR and therefore does not protect itself as with visible light by means of pupil contraction, avoidance, or blinking [2].
The safety assessment for the class of systems recognizing the characteristics of the iris of distant moving people is carried out in a typical scenario in which a subject or a queue of subjects walk through a gate equipped by an NIR illuminator and an iris recognition sensor.
Since the subjects proceed at a certain speed through the gate and the NIR illumination is concentrated in its proximity, the time of exposure to the NIR light is relatively short and its level of emission is moderate so that both parameters satisfy the safety conditions imposed by the norms.
A different scenario, such as the acquisition of the iris characteristics at greater distances, would probably involve a more elevated level of NIR light illumination and possibly longer exposure times. This could have a serious impact on the safety assessments, and therefore, at least for the moment, it is difficult to draw a scenario of biometric surveillance based on iris recognition.
Innovative methods for iris recognition not involving the use of the NIR light open, nevertheless, new perspectives for its use in surveillance scenarios.
10.3 Reaction to Public Opinion
Since biometric surveillance systems are presently not very popular, there is insufficient data to assess with certainty the reaction of the public about this class of systems. Moreover, public opinion could be put in relation to a series of extremely heterogeneous factors.
10.3.1 Geopolitical Context
It seems clear that the reaction of the public to the installation of a biometric surveillance system cannot be assessed unless it can be openly expressed. For example, a totalitarian regime could not allow a protest against such systems, and therefore only data collected in countries that allow a democratic discussion about pros and cons of biometric surveillance should be taken into account.
10.3.2 Technological Skills
Informed public opinion concerning the acceptance or rejection of a biometric surveillance system requires a certain technological comprehension of the benefits and critical points presented by such systems. If the users' population does not present a sufficient technological skills level, it may encounter difficulties in assessing the validity of the system and, at the same time, it will be easier influenced, in a positive or negative direction, by those who have an interest in supporting or denigrating such a system.
10.3.3 Proportionality
The implementation of a biometric surveillance system should always be motivated by a reasonable justification that explains the recourse to such a complex security application.
As discussed in the following paragraphs, the motivation of fighting against normal criminals using a high-tech tool no longer seems to correspond to a proportionality principle. Nowadays high level motivation, such as, for example, the fight against terror, should justify the installation of a biometric surveillance system.
10.3.4 A Particular Operational Framework
It is particularly difficult to analyze the legal aspects of the biometric surveillance due to the very limited and often old cases eligible for an analysis. It cannot be excluded that some biometric surveillance systems are actually in action but their presence is generally covert and considered in the particular framework of the law enforcement operations.
10.4 The Early Days
In today's society it is a standard practice that the spectators of a sports event are video-monitored for security purposes, and it may be possible that a biometric technology is associated to video-surveillance.
Anyway, in 2001, the introduction of a biometric surveillance system during the Super Bowl triggered a passionate discussion about the legal, social, and ethical implications of such an application.
To emphasize how the social acceptance of the biometric surveillance and of biometrics, in general, has sharply changed in these last 15 years, it may be wise to analyze some aspects which characterized the early days of biometrics.
10.4.1 Commercial Context
The 2000s can be considered as the years of the explosion of the biometric business as an outcome of the significant investments made in the 1980s and 1990s, probably based on the widely shared belief that the potential market of biometrics was extraordinarily large.
On the other hand, an impressive number of indicators, from the 2001 MIT Technology Review naming biometrics as one of the “top ten emerging technologies that will change the word” to the mundane and constant presence in science fiction movies, were consolidating this assumption.3
In the 2000s, a sign of the increasing popularity of these new technologies was the market presence of a variety of biometric solutions, from systems based on fingerprints recognition to start the engine of a car to biometric doorknobs and sophisticated biometric systems for accessing VIP lounges in airports as well as gyms. In other terms, the biometric business looked as one of the innovations belonging to the famous “dot.com” bubble that contributed to create, from 1996 to 2000, the NASDAQ stock index explosion, reaching over 5000 points.
It may be interesting to highlight that, at that time, the experts were forecasting a market of biometrics divided essentially in two segments, commercial and government. From September 11, 2001 it became clear that the direction of biometrics was strongly more oriented towards the latter direction.
10.4.2 Historical Context
As a consequence of the September 11th attacks, on November 14, 2001 a number of experts in biometrics were heard by the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate.
One of the motivations of the hearing was that, after the September 11th attacks, many Americans had begun to wonder how the hijackers had been able to succeed in their plans. In other terms, how could a large group of coordinated terrorists operate for more than a year in the United States without being detected. The answer to this question was that they could not be identified.
For this reason, an analysis of the types of biometrics out there was considered appropriate also to assess how they could be used by the government in conjunction with existing infrastructure and databases.
In particular, the hearing was attended by the personnel of two commercial companies specialized in face recognition, and on the issue of privacy, it was emphasized that a biometric surveillance system was not a national ID, in the sense that it was not targeted to identify the individuals. It was simply an alarm system that was built to provide alerts when a terrorist on a watch list appeared.
It should be also highlighted that, long before the September 11th attacks, the international political situation was particularly critical and it was already clear that the United States were the target of terroristic threats.
On June 25, 1996 in Khobar (Saudi Arabia) a truck bomb exploded close to the United States Air Force Personnel Headquarters. Furthermore, on August 7, 1998 two US Embassies (in Kenia and Tanzania) were attacked, and on October 12, 2000, less than one year before the September 11th events, the American warship USS Cole was targeted by a bomb in Aden (Yemen) harbor.
In this very concerning context, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) lauched the “Human Identification at a Distance” project aiming to verify the reliability of the biometric systems to recognize individuals at large distances, which may probably be considered a first step towards the biometric surveillance.
10.4.3 Social Context, the Newham and Ybor City Experiments
Mr. John Woodward, a lawyer and one of the first experts of the interplay between biometrics and legal aspects, is the author of a very interesting paper on the Super Bowl biometric experiment. In the document published in 2001 [1], he raised the question if people should be concerned about the government's use of this technology.
On the other hand, in various countries, several applications based on face recognition had already been launched. For example, the gaming industry claimed to be using face recognition to identify “card counters” and other undesirables, and since 1998, the West Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles has been implementing the technology to check for duplicate driver's license registrations.
But probably the most controversial and intriguing application of surveillance was launched in the UK, in the Newham Borough of London, where, for the first time, the so-called “interpassivization”4 of the police labor was experimented.
In 1998, the Newham Borough was considered an unsafe neighborhood, and a face recognition system was introduced to a number of town center cameras to record activity with the aim of decreasing street robbery. In other terms, the system was implemented to reduce the public fear of becoming a crime victim and, in parallel, to increase the criminals' perception of the chance they would be detected. The system captured faces and compared them against a police database of about a hundred convicted street robbers known to have been active in the previous 12 weeks.
An interesting point raised by the Newham experiment concerns the criteria adopted to insert an individual into the reference database. The reason for having chosen 12 weeks and not, for example, 10 weeks for the observation time seems somewhat heuristic and, in a legal sense, probably discriminatory.
The results of the Newham's experiment were very controversial since the biometric company claimed a substantial reduction of the criminality rate during the period of activity but the data have not been confirmed by the police.
An interesting point to analyze is the reaction of the public. The approval of Newham's system by its inhabitants was judged by comparing the results of opinion polls over the course of the implementation. When the facial recognition technology was first introduced, about 50% of local citizens approved of the system. After about 2 years of operation, the user approval rating rose. As the system did not lead directly to any arrests, the effect of facial recognition technology appeared to function largely as a deterrent to street crime in the monitored area.
The experiment was criticized by some privacy advocates concerned because of a possible infringement on the fundamental liberties. On the other hand, the supporters of the application claimed that the project defended the liberty itself of the people of the Newham borough to go about their business.
In June 2001, Ybor City neighborhood in Tampa, Florida became the first urban area in the United States to be fitted with a biometric surveillance system.
The experiment did not go as smoothly as its planners had hoped, and after a two-year period it ended due to inefficiency. Tampa police abandoned the effort to integrate facial recognition with the CCTV system in August 2003, citing its failure to identify a single wanted individual.
Much like the Newham Smart CCTV experiment, in Ybor City the police had in mind not only identifying criminal suspects, but also conveying an impression about the active role of the police in adopting new crime-fighting tools [3].
10.5 An Interesting Clue (2007)
After the Newham and the Ybor City experiments, no other significant installations of biometric surveillance systems were carried out also because it appeared necessary to carefully validate the performance of face recognition systems before launching new complex projects.
In this context of verification of the systems' performance, it is probably interesting to mention an experiment carried out in 2007, in Mainz (Germany) railway station with the aim of comparing different systems for face recognition in a real environment.
About 200 individuals were recruited for the test and they were given an RFID that confirmed their presence in the area submitted to the control.
Starting from the assumption that generally it is not easy to find volunteers for the biometric tests (often they are students involved in research projects), the organizers of the experiment decided to incentivize them with a small gift (such as, for example, a led torch or a Bluetooth device).
The small reward facilitated in a significant way the recruitment of the volunteers and this may probably have a common denominator with the reaction of the Newham inhabitants: people have a certain initial mistrust in biometrics but a sign of compensation, large or small, is probably able to compensate this initial diffidence.
This initial mistrust is probably of both rational and irrational nature and, in most cases, arises from a scarce knowledge of biometrics and, in parallel, from their reputation acquired in the society as being strongly linked with investigative or judicial contexts.
The spontaneous and intrinsic difficulty in accepting biometrics at a first glance is a key factor in studying a strategic communication for promoting biometric applications and, in particular, surveillance systems.
10.6 Biometric Surveillance Today
In the last 15 years, in different proportions among the nations but more or less globally, the perception of biometrics has deeply changed. Some possible motivations are reported below.
10.6.1 Increased Perception of Insecurity
It looks practically incredible for young generations to believe that, until some decades ago, in the airports it was possible to accompany a person till his/her embarkation on the plane in the so-called “last kiss area”. It certainly remains a nostalgic sign of the past together with the Boeing 707s or the PANAM smiling hostesses.
Certainly catalyzed by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the general perception of insecurity, not only in the airports, has grown sharply. Moreover, in recent times, the delicate international geopolitical situation and the growing threats accompanied by concrete criminal acts have meant that security is now considered of crucial importance and is among the main factors which may influence the ranking of the quality of life.
Biometric technologies have always been presented to the public as being able to increase the level of security, and therefore it is clear that the concerns about excessive invasiveness have been partially overcome thanks to the potential benefits offered.
10.6.2 Getting Used to the Erosion of Privacy
If George Orwell had witnessed the impetuous spread of technologies in the context of network communications, he would have likely realized that today's situation, in terms of privacy and freedom, is probably far more compromised than the one imagined in the “1984” novel.
It is well known that those who own a mobile phone virtually expose their data to the public. Since the time smartphones were put on the market, data leaks have become overwhelming due to installation of any “app” which requires the disclosure of a disproportionate quantity of user's sensible data, such as the list of contacts or taken photographs.
A society that silently and passively allows also the most elementary and not particularly useful apps for smartphones to access a disproportionate quantity of user's sensible data is slowly being accustomed to the loss of a substantial part of its privacy.
In this scenario, the use of biometric technologies, even for very delicate applications such as surveillance, no longer appears a “threat” able to trigger passionate discussions.
This is not to say that privacy advocates have ended raising possible concerns but, in a general way, in several countries the hostile climate towards biometric technologies has significantly decreased in recent years, obscured by new concrete threats to privacy and to personal data.
10.6.3 Increase of Mobility
Historically, the increase in mobility of the individuals may be linked to the necessity of a more accurate assessment of their identity. For example, the increase in the number of air passengers during these last years, due also to the success of low-cost airlines, represents one possible motivation to the root of the increase of the security elements of the travel documents by means of the introduction of the biometric characteristics of the holder.
Being accustomed to the release of fingerprints for obtaining a passport or the use of automated border crossing systems has strongly downplayed the irrational fears which have characterized the biometric technologies for years, paving the way to their better acceptance.
10.7 Conclusions
Biometric surveillance may represent a powerful tool in the context of the continuous fight against serious criminality and terror. Although in the past, such particular implementation of the biometric technologies encountered some opposition due to privacy and ethical concerns, nowadays it begins to be considered essential by a growing proportion of the public opinion.
In November 2015, a European Nation announced the introduction of face recognition systems connected to databases of persons of interest as one of the countermeasures to protect people from possible terrorist acts.
From a social point of view, it is particularly interesting to note that practically no significant concerns have been raised by the public.
This may be seen as a clear indication that the individual and collective security is nowadays almost unanimously considered a supreme value able to override, is some cases, even privacy or data protection issues that, without doubt, are certainly involved in biometric surveillance.
The next step in exploiting the fight against terror, from the biometric point of view, is anyway much more complex and is probably represented by sharing data at both interagency and international levels.
The necessity of increasing the international collaboration in sharing data is nowadays a mantra that is chanted continuously and is the object of the meetings and conferences. Unfortunately, even now, sharing data still encounters many difficulties due to, for example, a certain mistrust among the nations.
Is there a future for the biometric surveillance? Surely yes also because, although being a complex application where technical and ethical issues mix, its potential in fighting serious crimes or terrorist acts may be considered really strong.
Will biometric surveillance be still the object of criticism? Surely yes, even if the nowadays common tolerance for smartphones that continuously capture data or Smart TV that may silently activate a microphone or a video camera to monitor a family in its own dining room is clearly showing us that the times are changing and that the concerns for the privacy risks posed by biometric surveillance seem realistically outdated.