Is the idea of widespread biometric data collection still too spooky to win over the American public?
At some level, it’s already becoming commonplace: California and some other states demand fingerprints from driver’s license holders. The Verified Identity Pass program includes iris scans, as does the U.K’s border control system. And prisoners have their blood forcibly drawn for a DNA sample. But more widespread use of biometrics, especially by the government, raises substantial privacy concerns that may alarm many Americans and prove difficult to resolve, panelists at a conference here said Tuesday. “How would I transact business, if I knew someone was following me everywhere and watching me?” asked Scott Hastings, president of the IT consulting firm Deep Water Point, who previously worked in the federal government for 23 years. “We need to grab hold of that and decide how that’s going to modify our behavior.
