Biometrics for an ageing society societal and ethical factors in biometrics and ageing
Andrew P. Rebera, Barry Guihen · 2012
Abstract—By the middle of the twenty-first century around one third of the European population will be aged 65 or over. This poses two main challenges to biometrics. First, the quality of an image capturable from an older person is likely to be inferior to that of a younger person, leading to increased failure to capture or failure to enroll rates. Second, since biometric features alter over time, ‘within-person variation ’ and ‘template ageing ’ lead to significant system performance degradation. As society ages the need for solutions becomes increasingly urgent. This paper addresses a major societal and ethical issue this need provokes. Keywords—biometrics; ageing; societal; ethical issues 1 Ageing and Biometrics We live in a rapidly ageing society. By the middle of the twenty-first century around one third of the European population will be aged 65 or over [EC06], an increase of 77 percent [GC06]. Two years ago, it was predicted that one third of American workers will be aged over 50 by 2012 [E10]. In China, the ‘dependency ratio ’ (number of people aged 65 or over to the number of people of working age) will increase by a factor of 4 by