Two laws you cannot break are Newton’s Third Law of Motion and …
The Law of Unintended Consequences
Author: Tony Colle Thought: Do Biometrics Really Make You Safer? Who can argue that taking a biometric scan for quick identification can be most helpful? You could be unconscious with your wallet stolen and the EMS people simply scan your hand or take your fingerprint and within seconds, they know who you are, know your allergies and medications, and have already started contacting your family to tell them you are on the way to the hospital. (Oh, and they’ll know if you have insurance, too.) Who can argue that a biometric scan that tells the cash register that you have money in your account can cause a purchase to happen so much easier? Visa, step out of the way. Why swipe a card when you can simply poke your finger against a glass slide. What can be safer? Can anyone steal your fingerprints? What’s safer than that? Or if you don’t scan your finger, how about scanning a chip carefully placed in your hand, or read an invisible tattoo, for that matter? The dirty little secret is that, yes, someone can steal your fingerprints. You only need to see the Discovery channel’s Mythbusters to see that it can be done. Putting gruesome thoughts about chip stealers aside, your chip may be safe and your fingerprints may be relatively safe but the systems on which this information is stored are definitely not safe. How many stories have been reported about banks that have been hacked into and accounts messed with? And that’s with people who have to swipe a card or show an ID to get money. People don’t even need to steal your chip. Simply hack the bank records and if you still exist, you won’t have a penny to your name. A short while ago I received a letter from a big computer company with 3-letters as its name for whom I hadn’t worked for over 10 years. It seems that a backup tape with former and current employee data (names, addresses, social security numbers, and the like) had gone “missing”. Oh, they were willing to cover my losses if I could prove that my losses came from their mistake. Hello! The tape is missing! How could anyone prove that missing information was used? It’s missing, remember? In short, it’s really my problem, and it will be yours, too, if the biometrics fail. There are many, many other horror stories of companies and government agencies having laptops stolen that contained personal, financial, medical, or other private information that should never have been on those laptop computers in the first place. Don’t get me wrong. They were all very sorry it happened and they’ll try like crazy to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Little comfort, Mrs. Jones, that is if you really are Mrs. Jones. The problem is not with technology. Technology is morally neutral. It’s what we do with it or how much we rely on it rather than relying on good old common sense and good, safe practices that causes problems. I’m not opposed to my deciding if I want to take advantage of biometrics for my business transactions with a specific firm or bank. That’s my choice and I can choose to accept that risk or not. I also don’t have a problem with parents taking their children’s fingerprints and getting DNA just in case the unthinkable happens. That’s their decision. I do, however, have problems with the government mandating that all business must be handled through biometrics or some equally unconfirmable technology. Have you ever tried to get any government agency to straighten out a problem that they themselves caused? It took me a week to get the DMV to admit that I really did have full insurance coverage, even though they had the documents at hand. How do you prove your identity if all of the systems upon which people rely don’t agree with each other? I can see a whole industry coming, not one of protecting against identity theft but one of proving identity for those from whom it was stolen. Many say that there will come a day when nobody will be able to buy or sell unless they have some special mark to identify them. One must question, however, how even those systems will be kept safe from hackers. Think of the chaos that could come when everyone is marked and someone scrambles the accounts. Nonetheless, the Bible says it will happen. That mark of identity is called the “Mark of the Beast.” Without it, economically, you’re toast.
Raging Incrementalism Copyright © 2009 Tony Colle. All rights reserved. Permission to use this material is granted provided that the copyright information is preserved and proper attribution is given to the author and to MOBResistance.org | 
