The Biometric Society – Risks and Opportunities
Bromba Manfred U.A. · NATO science for peace and security series. Sub-series E, Human and societal dynamics · 2009
The Biometric Society is defined here as a fictive future trend of the Information Society in which our daily life is dominated by biometric identification using a central database. This brings many benefits for users but at the same time enables an almost total surveillance. Already today one can observe permanently advancing data surveillance trends which are a by-product of state-of-the-art technologies and services. This kind of surveillance is claimed to be effectively usable as a measure against terrorism, although it is also suspected to favor democide. Since there is no strong proof that total surveillance is incompatible with democracy, there is little resistance against the small steps towards it. This paper also treats the technical feasibility of Biometric Society. However, the question as to whether or when Biometric Society will ever become realit goes beyond the scope of the present investigation.