10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17611
There is a global trend to expand biometric technology usage: digital identification practices increasingly gather peculiar features of the human body – in the security domain as well as in the consumer sector and everyday-technologies. This indicates a wider shift in the role of biometrics for digital identification entailing a significant further expansion of identifiability. Applying biometrics is frequently justified with security improvements. However, it also bears various security risks and individuals cannot simply opt-out from their bodies or change their bodily characteristics. On the longer run, human bodies may become partially reduced to enduring machine-readable, informational patterns as physical and digital environments conflate. Biometrics is thus a very powerful and threatful technology increasingly affecting how humans relate to technology, substantially challenging human rights. The paper argues that the far-reaching consequences of this development are yet underestimated and require broader societal debates and regulatory measures to reduce the corresponding risks, in particular as: 1) biometric information is bound to human bodies and thus irreversible, making individuals more vulnerable to misuse; 2) the shift from a security towards a mainstream technology fosters habituation effects and incremental compulsion to provide biometric features; 3) the extensive use of biometric systems facilitates misuse, reinforces surveillance tendencies, security, data protection and privacy issues; 4) biometrics used as automated control technology seriously strain human rights as it reinforces risks of discrimination, increasingly affecting bodily integrity and human dignity.&nbsp;
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Stefan Strauß
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
human rights
The body as permanent digital identity? Societal and ethical implications of biometrics as mainstream technology
Text.Serial.Journal
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Essays
2023-09-26
2023-07-03
2023-09-26
2023-09-26
59-76
TS
Stefan Strauß
2023/09/26
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17611
59
Austrian Academy of Sciences
2038-3460
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human rights
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The body as permanent digital identity? Societal and ethical implications of biometrics as mainstream technology
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14
T/S                                                                                                             SPECIAL SECTION ESSAY



The body as permanent digital identity? Societal and ethical
implications of biometrics as mainstream technology

Stefan Strauß
Austrian Academy of Sciences



Corresponding author                                              Abstract
Stefan Strauß                                                     There is a global trend to expand biometric technology usage: digital
Institute of Technology Assessment,                               identification practices increasingly gather peculiar features of the human
Austrian Academy of Sciences                                      body – in the security domain as well as in the consumer sector and ev-
Bäckerstraße 13, 1010,                                            eryday-technologies. This indicates a wider shift in the role of biometrics
Vienna, Austria                                                   for digital identification entailing a significant further expansion of identi-
   sstrauss@oeaw.ac.at                                            fiability. Applying biometrics is frequently justified with security improve-
                                                                  ments. However, it also bears various security risks and individuals cannot
Submitted: May 24, 2022                                           simply opt-out from their bodies or change their bodily characteristics. On
Accepted: May 8, 2023                                             the longer run, human bodies may become partially reduced to enduring
                                                                  machine-readable, informational patterns as physical and digital environ-
                                                                  ments conflate. Biometrics is thus a very powerful and threatful technology
                                                                  increasingly affecting how humans relate to technology, substantially chal-
                                                                  lenging human rights. The paper argues that the far-reaching consequenc-
                                                                  es of this development are yet underestimated and require broader societal
                                                                  debates and regulatory measures to reduce the corresponding risks, in par-
                                                                  ticular as: 1) biometric information is bound to human bodies and thus irre-
                                                                  versible, making individuals more vulnerable to misuse; 2) the shift from a
                                                                  security towards a mainstream technology fosters habituation effects and
                                                                  incremental compulsion to provide biometric features; 3) the extensive use
                                                                  of biometric systems facilitates misuse, reinforces surveillance tendencies,
                                                                  security, data protection and privacy issues; 4) biometrics used as automat-
                                                                  ed control technology seriously strain human rights as it reinforces risks of
                                                                  discrimination, increasingly affecting bodily integrity and human dignity.

                                                                  Keywords
                                                                  identification practices; digital transformation; privacy; security; dignity;
                                                                  human rights.




1. Introduction

   Biometrics has a long history and its usage as identification practice for security purposes in Eu-
rope dates back to the 19th century (Lyon 2008; Maguire 2009; Jain 2016). Beginning in the 1990s,
it became a tool of global security governance, latest in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Many scholars in security and surveillance studies extensively analyzed this role and its societal con-

CNOS
   TE CIENZA. tI alian Journal of Science & eT chnology Studies                                             © The Author(s) 2023
     14(1) p. 59-76 ISSN 2038-3460                                                                          Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
     DOI: 10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17611                                                                      www.tecnoscienza.net
Strauß                                                                                                 60

sequences (cf. Schneier 1999; Lyon 2003; Bennett and Lyon 2008; Ball et al. 2012). In private
sector, diffusion increased as well, though, mainly used as specific security technology in limited
contexts, e.g., for law enforcement, border control, or in identity (ID) systems for access control
in public and private organizations. For several years now, this role as security technology has been
altering within the accelerating digital transformation of society. A significant expansion of biome-
trics as digital identification practice is observable in various domains. In parallel to its relevance for
security governance, also a growing number of commercial applications and “everyday-technol-
ogies” employs biometrics. Bodily features like fingerprints or facial images are gathered in many
contexts and enormous amounts of biometric information flow into various digital platforms.
This often happens either en-passant, embedded into typical user verification procedures (e.g.,
logins); or covertly and without direct user involvement (e.g., through facial recognition systems).
   If this development proceeds, biometrics becomes a widespread sociotechnical practice
deeply altering digital identification, and how human bodies relate to technology. On the
longer run, biometrics showcases the incremental conflation between physical and digital
representations of ourselves. This involves some important questions, such as: what are the
peculiarities of biometrics as digital identification practice and how does this relate to notions
of embodiment? What are main drivers of the global increase in biometrics, and what are the
societal and ethical effects of the entrenchment of biometric systems in a broad range of appli-
cations? A fully comprehensive analysis of these questions is beyond the scope of this paper
but it contributes to this discussion by outlining how this development emerged and provid-
ing a critical analytical review of the wider societal and ethical implications of a general expan-
sion of biometrics as digital identification practice in everyday-life. Based on this, the paper
argues that the expansion of biometrics entails wider sociotechnical shifts which reinforce
identifiability of individuals. Human bodies are increasingly exposed to technologies, secret-
ly measuring and transforming their digital representations into enduring machine-readable
code. This has substantial consequences on privacy, security and human dignity. In public
discourse as well among policy makers, this development is yet underestimated and requires a
broader societal debate and regulatory measures to reduce the corresponding risks.
   The paper is structured as follows: the next section presents and discusses analytical perspec-
tives to explore the peculiar role of biometrics as digital identification practice and how it affects
the notion of embodiment through technology. Based on this, the empirical sections then first
present an analytical review of main political and economic drivers behind the expansion of
biometrics and its shift towards commercial applications as mainstream technology. This is fol-
lowed by an analysis of societal and ethical implications of the extended use of biometrics as dig-
ital identification practice. The final section presents a short summary and concluding remarks.


2. Unfolding analytical perspectives
  2.1 The peculiar role of biometrics as digital identification practice

  Biometrics can be analyzed from various disciplinary angles, e.g., biology and anthropolo-
gy (Maguire 2009), criminology, sociology and political science (Amoore 2011; Bennett and
61                                                                         Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(1)

Lyon 2008; Mordini and Tzovaras 2012), body, gender and identity studies (Magnet 2011;
Smith 2016), computer science, privacy and information security (Schneier 1999; Clarke
2001/2002; Jain 2016; Dong et al. 2022), surveillance studies (Lyon 2003; Ball et al. 2012) etc.
From an STS perspective, biometrics is understood as socially constructed technology with
mutual processes of co-shaping, i.e., societal practices affect technology design, its political and
economic usage patterns and vice versa (cf. Bijker et al. 1989; Feenberg 2002). Corresponding-
ly, the analytical focus here is on biometrics as digital identification practice and the interplay
of its sociotechnical and its sociopolitical dimensions. To grasp the wider societal and ethical
implications of biometrics requires some basic knowledge on its technical role first.
   From a technical angle, biometrics is the processing of digital information of bodily features
to authenticate or identify a particular person in specific contexts. Biometric features are inev-
itably coupled to the human body and thus considered as suitable factors for these purposes
(Bennett and Lyon 2008; Maguire 2009; Jain et al. 2016). Identification is “the processing of
information related or referring to the identity of a particular individual” (Strauß 2019, 36).
Hence, information about a person or more precisely – personally identifiable information
(PII) obviously is a necessary condition for identification. There are four basic dimensions of
PII (i.e., substantial, spatio-temporal, relational and interactional PII) that together consti-
tute the identifiability of an individual person (ibid, 244). In this regard, biometric features
are at the core of substantial PII: they represent specific characteristics substantially bound
to a person’s body. Biometrics transforms this information (e.g., of a physical fingerprint or a
facial image) into digital representations thereof. Besides the widespread use of fingerprints or
facial images, various systems also gather other bodily features like informational patterns of
the iris, voice or even vein patterns, or additional sensor data like skin temperature, pressure
etc. (Jain 2016; Schaber et al. 2020). Due to its integration into other digital technologies
(e.g., via sensors in smartphones, laptops or smart CCTV etc.), biometrics are often com-
bined with technically generated identifiable information (TII), like, e.g., device- and applica-
tion specific IDs, sensor IDs, digital hash-values, geo-location/movements, time stamps, rela-
tional and interactional information and many other forms of meta data (Strauß 2019, 245).
   The peculiarities of biometrics also affect the sociopolitical role of the human body and
how it is represented and used by technology. Due to the inherent identifiable nature of biom-
etric features, they always convey the possibility to identification. Hence, even though biom-
etric features serve authentication, identification is hardly avoidable – even if unintended. In
the notion of the body as a “walking sensor platform” Smith (2016, 110) conceptualizes this
issue as “disembodied exhaust” which “refers to the data trails that, as affective transfers, are ei-
ther voluntarily or involuntarily emitted from the body as it interfaces with networked sensor
technologies”. In contrast to other forms of identity information used as credentials, biomet-
ric features are not changeable. Once in use as credentials, they are a persistent representation
of a person’s identity based on characteristics of her body. The digital processing of biometric
characteristics thus has consequences for their persistence and durability and thus also for the
identifiability of individual persons and how they are embodied by and through technology.
Strauß                                                                                              62

  2.2 Humans as tool-beings? How biometrics affects embodiment

   The increasing use of biometrics is a showcase to the questions how our bodies become digi-
tized and how digital technology alters embodiment. Various studies discuss effects of technol-
ogy on embodiment concerning self-presentation, e.g., in the context of social networks or vir-
tual environments (Kruzan and Won 2019). Few studies examine how digital technology and
biometrics tend to reduce embodiment to digital representations of human bodies (Farr et al.
2012). Titchkosky (2007, 13) broadly defines embodiment as “all the […]ways that we (self
and other) accomplish relations to being in possession of the bodies that we are”. Based on
this, Melonocon (2013, 71) highlights the role of technology for embodiment and in reference
to Heidegger, argues that due to technology usage, humans are “tool-beings that use a variety
of equipment, or technology”. In other words: technology temporarily becomes a functional
part of the body through interaction. This is basically given for any form of human-computer
interaction but not necessarily including identification as in the case of biometrics.
   Biometric technology is thus a specific case with additional effects altering the classical no-
tion of embodiment: it generates a digital representation of features of the human body (e.g.,
fingerprints or facial characteristics) which then serves as identification tool. On a general level,
a digital artifact based on reductionistic models of bodily features emerges inevitably referring
to an individuals’ identity. In this regard, the notion of “humans as tool-beings” gets a different
meaning: not just technology is a tool for humans, but features of the human body serve as
tools for biometric technology in various contexts. Correspondingly, scholars in surveillance
studies describe biometrics and the gathering of bodily information through digital technology
as process where human bodies are converted into “data derivatives” (Amoore 2011) or “objects
of information” (French and Smith 2016; Smith 2016). There is thus also a nexus of embodi-
ment and surveillance. Through biometrics, the body as object of information becomes met-
aphorically liquified (ibid.), as Lyon describes with the concept of: “liquid surveillance” that:

     captures the reduction of the body to data and the creation of life-chances and choices hang
     more significantly than our real lives and the stories we tell about them. (Lyon 2010, 325;
     cited from Smith 2016)

   Basically, surveillance and control practices always relate to identification practices (Clarke
2001; 2002; Lyon 2008; Ball et al. 2012; Smith 2016; Strauß 2019). Biometric technology,
which is basically driven by the notion that bodily features are a dependable source for iden-
tification, tightens this relation. It combines personal with technical identification and trans-
forms bodily information into machine-readable code. This “ontology of the body as a relia-
ble organism for identification and measurement has helped turn bodies into focal points for
practices of monitoring and control” (French and Smith 2016, 8). Biometrics is thus a very
powerful, transformative technology fostering the incremental conflation between physical
and digital representations of human identities over their bodies.
   In a figurative sense, biometrics dematerializes bodily features and transforms them into
digital matter. Apparently, this is not a direct transformation as the body obviously remains
matter. But bodily information becomes virtualized and a virtual entity of ourselves emerges.
63                                                                      Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(1)

This virtual entity is then exposed to further processing, stimulating a further expansion of
identifiable information and thus of identifiability. From a metaphysical perspective, referring
to Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism (Barad 2007), biometrics is an example of an inter-
actional process or “intra-action” that creates informational objects of the human body which
enable the possibility of alternative usage. On the longer run, these alternative usage forms can
pave the way for further transformations even involving transhumanism as biometrics is closely
related to AI. But also leaving this metaphysical approach aside, the transformative capacity of
biometrics has far-reaching consequences for the role and function of bodily features in society.


3. Empirical analysis

  3.1 From security to commercialization: biometrics as mainstream technology?

   The use of biometrics for identification as administrative practice has a relatively long
history. Early biometric ID systems in Europe date back to the 19th century in France and
were also used by the colonial powers, e.g., by the British administration in India (Maguire
2009). Partially, this historical context affected the creation of systems like Aadhaar in India,
which today is the largest governmental biometric ID database system with over 1.2 billion
entries (Rao and Nair 2019). In national contexts, biometrics are used for many years for
law enforcement and security governance. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this
increased significantly on a global scale. Its use for identification as part of global security
governance began with the integration of biometric features into passports and other forms
of governmental IDs (Bennett and Lyon 2008; Maguire 2009; Magnet 2011). Since 2005, bi-
ometric data and radio-frequency identification (RFID) became a standard feature in newly
rolled-out passports1 (Bennett and Lyon 2008). Nevertheless, biometrics mainly served as spe-
cific technology in limited contexts in the security domain, e.g., for law enforcement, border
control or access control systems in public and private organizations.
   For several years, though, a significant expansion of biometrics proceeds, including a va-
riety of commercial applications ranging from smartphone apps, e-banking, payment ser-
vices, smart locks, digitized vehicles up to internet of things (IoT) applications. Gathering
biometric information thus is about to become a common practice embedded into various
everyday-services. This often happens either as additional process in a typical user verification
procedure (e.g., user logins), where biometrics like fingerprints or facial image are used for
multi-factor authentication; or covertly and without direct user involvement (e.g., through
facial recognition). Also operating systems on PCs and laptops increasingly suggest to use
biometrics as user credentials. All these developments lead to an incremental increase in the
gathering of bodily features in various contexts.
   This trend continues and over the years, there has been a shift where biometrics turned
from being a security technology in a limited number of domains towards a convenience
technology being broadly applied in the consumer sector. In many Asian countries, this trend
started earlier and over the last years, applications significantly increase also in the US and
Europe, where, e.g., global payment companies like Mastercard and Visa started about 2013
Strauß                                                                                            64

with payments via biometrics like “pay-by-selfie” (Sayer 2013; Leyden 2016). This develop-
ment towards biometrics as mainstream application is not just pushed by the tech-industry,
but also by policy makers in Europe: The EU Commission frames biometrics as key enabler
for future digital services to stimulate digital markets (Bonneau et al. 2018). Correspondingly,
various regulations, e.g., the eIDAS Directive2 of 2016 foresee an interoperable, cross-border
digital identification framework for public and private services. Further regulations refer to
this framework, like the EU payment services Directives3 to stimulate the use of digital IDs in
online markets. Recent plans to amend the eIDAS Directive4 aim at further broadening usage
of the digital ID framework by, e.g., introducing digital wallets for EU citizens. Since 2019,
e.g., the payment services Directive explicitly forces service providers to multi-factor authenti-
cation to improve security in online services. This means that the identity of a person needs to
be verified based on at least two security factors. These are either knowledge (i.e., a password or
PIN), possession (i.e., a token like a smart card), or inherence, i.e., a metric intrinsically linked
to an individual. The latter basically means biometric features like fingerprints, facial image,
voice pattern or other bodily characteristics. Biometrics is not mandatory, though, recom-
mended. Therefore, most providers integrated biometrics into their applications like, e.g., in
some smartphone-apps for e-banking or mobile payment. This technology push is one reason
for its growing importance across Europe. The ongoing global trend towards a commerciali-
zation of biometrics affects a broad range of public and private services. In combination with
plans of the technology-alliance FIDO including big tech-companies (e.g., Microsoft, Apple,
Google) to replace password-based user logins with biometrics (FIDO 2022), a significant
technology-boost in the next few years can be expected.
   This makes biometric data even more attractive for additional usage like profiling based
on so-called identity graphs. For several years, global tech-companies like Facebook/Meta,
Google/Alphabet, Amazon or database companies like Oracle and others build ID graphs to
dynamically map and analyze user data also across different technologies. These ID graphs
stimulate new markets with digital identities. Identity information is being gathered “across
all devices, screens and channels” in order to create comprehensive ID models of consumers
“including what people say, what they do and what they buy” (Oracle 2015; Strauß 2019,
138). With the further commercialization of biometrics, these ID graphs also include bodily
features (Christl 2017). Biometrics thus also serves global data markets. This global expan-
sion of the gathering of biometric information in commercial applications relates to Zuboff’s
notion of “surveillance capitalism” addressing the increasing tendency of processing data on
human individuals and their behavior for commercial business models (Zuboff 2019, 8ff.).
In parallel, policy makers also extent the processing of biometric data for law enforcement
and security authorities. In Europe, the amendment of the Prüm framework5 (“next genera-
tion Prüm”) inter alia foresees more use of biometrics and data exchange for security author-
ities. These plans include the implementation of a cross-broader facial recognition system
(EP 2020; EDRi 2021). Altogether, these developments are driven by an ongoing trend of
securitization and economization of digital identification (Strauß 2019, 134). This is a fur-
ther indicator for the conflation between political and economic variants of “surveillant as-
semblages” (Haggerty and Ericson 2000). This conflation and the broader use of biometrics
entails serious societal and ethical risks as discussed in the next section.
65                                                                      Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(1)

  3.2 Societal and ethical implications

  Essentially, the broad use of biometrics leads to increasing identifiability of individuals.
This raises many societal and ethical issues with far-reaching effects on human rights and
democracy, which result from a mix of social, political, economic and technological factors:

  3.2.1 Irreversibility and vulnerability of biometric information

   A crucial peculiarity of biometric features is its strong and inevitable linkage to the body of
a particular person. This can facilitate to enforce identification, as biometrics always conveys
information about the identity of the person. The main argument justifying the use of biom-
etric technology is to improve both: security and convenience of identification and authenti-
cation procedures. However, this argument is only partially valid. Potential security gains are
achievable in cases where hard identification is necessary and where the application environ-
ment is securely protected from misuse. In theory, biometrics require the physical presence
of the person concerned which should decrease the risk of security breaches. This is assumed
to be a security benefit compared to common credentials. Biometric features are thus attrac-
tive as factor of inherence for multi-factor authentication. However, in fact, biometrics only
make sense in clearly defined, secure environments where abuse is very unlikely and systems
are decoupled from external access (Schneier 1999; Clarke 2001; 2002; Schaber et al. 2020).
Particularly, because the irreversibility of biometric information affects the severity of various
risks: when common user credentials (e.g., username and password) are misused, an effective
method to limit further damage is revocation and change of credentials. In contrast to less
binding forms of identifiable information, bodily characteristics, though, are not changeable
and cannot be easily revoked. In other words: a person may change its username, real name
or any other identifiers, but she cannot opt-out from her body by changing her face or finger-
prints. The general irreversibility of biometric features thus also affects its vulnerability, may
facilitate abuse and limit options to take effective action to prevent it. In practice, numer-
ous variants of attacks on biometric systems exist, even without requiring physical presence
(Adler and Schuckers 2009; Hadid et al. 2015; Ramachandra and Busch 2017; Dong et al.
2020). Security researchers demonstrated, e.g., to easily gather fingerprints from a glass or
other surfaces with adhesive strips to create synthetic fingerprints; digital images can circum-
vent facial recognition and common digital cameras are sufficient to trick even more complex
biometric sensors like iris-scans (Arthur 2013; Foltýn 2019; Schaber et al. 2020). Moreover,
recent studies show that inverse biometrics, i.e., the abusive reconstruction of biometric tem-
plates, is possible: biometric templates (the digital encoding of biometric features) are used to
avoid direct processing of biometric information (e.g., fingerprint) and were assumed to be
widely protected from reverse engineering and abuse. However, several studies demonstrate
that they are not as secure as assumed (Gomez-Barrero and Galbally 2020). This increases the
vulnerability of biometric systems and risks of privacy breaches, unintended secondary use
or other forms of misuse. Extended usage of biometrics will likely aggravate these problems.
Strauß                                                                                       66

  3.2.2 Habituation effects and incremental compulsion to provide biometric
  information for identification

   As a consequence of biometrics as mainstream technology, individuals become increasingly
confronted with and thus used to providing bodily features in everyday-life. Already today,
various smartphone apps gather biometric features such as the Chinese social media app Tik-
tok collecting personal faceprints and voiceprints (Perez 2021). Similar is the case for other
social media services which hold enormous amounts of facial images of their users worldwide
(e.g., Facebook/Meta or its subservices Whatsapp and Instagram; see Field 2021). One may
argue that users are not obliged to use biometrics. However, its expansion facilitates function
and mission creep: i.e., extended use of the technology in various application contexts beyond
its original purpose (Lyon 2003; Ball et al. 2012), accompanied by a gradual decrease in al-
ternatives without biometrics. Individuals being uncomfortable with providing their bodily
features may encounter difficulties in avoiding biometrics. This is already observable, e.g., in
banking apps mostly suggesting to provide biometric features for authentication. Also other
domains like the mobility sector include biometrics: some cars already use fingerprints in-
stead of keys which is part of a general trend in the automotive industry to foster biometrics
like fingerprint scans, facial recognition and iris scans (Eisenstein 2018; Burt 2021). Moreo-
ver, biometric recognition also functions without direct user involvement. The global trend
towards facial recognition is a showcase for this: these systems can covertly identify individu-
als from a distance. Their functionality also refers to habituation effects: many people provide
and share their facial images via smartphones and social media. As this data is mostly not
protected from external access, it can be harvested and, e.g., used to train facial recognition
algorithms. For instance by Facebook, having introduced facial recognition in 2010 (Strauß
2019, 172) or biometric search engines like “Clearview AI” or “Pimeyes” that harvested mil-
lions of facial images from the internet. There is also a growing number of facial recognition
apps and smart glasses equipped with biometrics available. Google developed a similar tech-
nology already in 2012 but stopped it also due to heavy protest and concerns of privacy and
security experts (Eveleth 2018). However, the technology seems to recur. Recently, Clearview
AI announced that it develops such a technology for the U.S. Airforce (Brewster 2022).

  3.2.3 Additional risks of security breaches, privacy violations and surveillance

   The expanding range of “everyday”-applications processing biometric features makes abuse
of various kind (e.g., identity theft) even more attractive. Attackers benefit from broad usage
of biometrics as misuse pays off: once biometric features are gathered they can be misused in
various contexts. The growing amount of security breaches and attacks on biometric systems
underlines risks of misuse, e.g.: in 2019, 184,000 datasets of a facial recognition system of
US homeland security were stolen and sold in the darknet; also in 2019, security researchers
revealed that the database of a large security company providing biometric systems world-
wide was unprotected from external web-access. It contained 28 million entries including
fingerprints and facial biometrics; in 2020, over 70,000 datasets with fingerprints were stolen
from a database of the Brazilian government; Aadhaar, the largest biometric system in In-
67                                                                        Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(1)

dia, containing the highest amount of biometric data worldwide (more than 1 billion) is fre-
quently getting hacked. In 2018, biometric data from Aadhaar were even sold via Whatsapp
(Malhotra 2018); and in 2021, media reported about government backed Chinese hackers
attacking the system (Tarabay 2021). But not only direct attacks to biometric systems are
security threats but also insufficient protection, lacking risk-awareness and careless provision
of biometric data. Smartphones become centralized devices for biometric processing and thus
are very attractive for misuse of various kind. Particularly social media offer various options to
exploit biometric data like facial images.
   Secretly gathering biometric features over digital technology is thus relatively simple and
misuse is evident as scandals like those around Pimeyes in Europe and Clear View AI in the
US highlight: both companies harvested facial images from web sources on a global scale to
train their facial recognition systems (Laufer and Meineck 2020; Hill 2020a). These are not
single cases: there are, e.g., also several lawsuits for misusing biometric data against Facebook/
Meta (EPIC 2018; Paxton 2022). Besides the legal and ethical problems, these practices also
highlight a policy vacuum as regards the protection of publicly available information contain-
ing biometric features like facial images. German federal state Baden-Würtemberg initiated
legal proceedings against Pimeyes6 and in March 2022, the Italian Privacy Regulator fined
Clearview 20 million USD for violating the GDPR (EDPB 2022). These lawsuits are impor-
tant but a decrease in biometrics is still doubtful. Basically, the GDPR considers the sensitive
nature of biometric features and the power of biometrics: it defines biometric data as:

     personal data resulting from specific technical processing relating to the physical, phys-
     iological or behavioural characteristics of a natural person, which allow or confirm the
     unique identification of that natural person, such as facial images or dactyloscopic data.
     (Art. 4 GDPR7)

   Given the sensitivity of biometric information, the regulation foresees a higher level of pro-
tection for biometric data and prohibits its processing “for the purpose of uniquely identify-
ing natural persons” (Art. 9 GDPR). Hence, theoretically, biometric information is sensitive,
requires thorough protection and the use of biometric systems is legally restricted. However,
in practice, this is rather ineffective, due to several exceptions and an old problem, i.e., the
limits of informed consent (Strauß 2019, 198ff.), individuals mostly lack in effective options
to avoid being exposed to biometric identification. As of yet, there is often no real alternative
except for explicit non-usage of applications processing biometric information. Moreover,
boosted by social media, there are millions of selfies and other facial images available, exposed
to misuse of any kind without any effective protection as these and other data scandals show.
The above-mentioned lawsuits are rather the tip of the iceberg. With further normalization
of biometrics, increasing pressure on individuals to give consent can be expected. Altogeth-
er, the broad accessibility of biometric data over digital technologies stimulates their massive
collection and increases risks of misuse. This is a further indicator for the invalidity of the
argument that biometrics would improve security.
   Clarke (2002) early warned of biometrics being among the most dangerous technologies
reinforcing mass surveillance. Particularly, as biometric technology is an integral part of “sur-
Strauß                                                                                         68

veillant assemblages” (Haggerty and Ericson 2000) where “assemblages leak into assemblages,
with no clear sense of where the body stops and where surveillance systems start, and vice
versa” (French and Smith 2016, 10). This assumed leakage from one assemblage to another
basically means re-contextualization and secondary use of biometric data in terms of data
protection. The broad usage of biometrics can thus indeed lead to a severe reduction of ano-
nymity, privacy and related other fundamental rights like freedom of movement, expression
etc. Furthermore, also human dignity is already affected in many respects.

  3.2.4 Risks of reinforcing discrimination and incremental reduction of human dignity

   The irreversibility of biometric information also reinforces risks of discrimination and af-
fects human dignity. Many scholars have been warning for years about the manifold risks
of biometrics to human rights (cf. Schneier 1999; Clarke 2001; 2002; Lyon 2008; Magnet
2011; Ball et al. 2012; Mordini and Tzovaras 2012; French and Smith 2016; Schaber et al.
2020; Gordon et al. 2021). Through biometrics, we are partially becoming reduced to algo-
rithmic codes, entailing the risk of an incremental dehumanization of ourselves, as Clarke
(2001) put straight. As of yet, this risk of a dehumanization may sound overstated. However,
given the fact that biometric systems increase globally, implying the automated, algorithmic
mapping, classification and encoding of information concerning human bodies, this risk may
increase significantly. Not least as biometrics is closely linked to automated statistics, machine
learning algorithms and AI. Algorithmic systems increasingly use biometric “body codes” to
govern, predict and control human behavior. This is evident for many years in authoritarian
regimes where biometric technology such as facial recognition serves as tool of discrimination
and oppression, e.g., to identify government critics or to identify, categorize and divide citi-
zens in different social groups. For instance, in China, where the technology is used to control
citizens and sort out unwanted minorities like Uygur Muslims (Ng 2020); similar in Russia,
where the technology serves mass surveillance and the prosecution of opposition members
(HRW 2021); or in Iran, where the authoritarian regime plans to use facial recognition to
identify women who are not wearing hijabs (Strzyżyńska 2022).
   The increasing use of biometrics as political tool of control is not limited to non-demo-
cratic regimes but also observable in democratic states. Among others, Magnet (2011, 126)
argued that biometrics lead to a revival of outdated biological notions about race and gender.
The technological reinforcement of structural discrimination and racism is an evident prob-
lem today. Facial recognition is particularly problematic here which, as many cases (also out-
side the US) demonstrate, frequently leads to false accusations and discrimination. One issue
is that biometric systems are often prone to errors. For example: during a soccer game in Wales
in 2017, a facial recognition system falsely classified more than 2,000 persons as suspects
which corresponds to an error rate of over 90 per cent (Burgess 2018). A further example is a
system used in the US city of Detroit which even had a failure rate of 96 per cent as the head
of police admitted (Koebler 2020). Failure rates may decrease due to technological progress.
However, this does not solve societal and ethical problems as lacking accuracy is only a side
issue while the main issue is how the technology is used (Castelvecchi 2020). A serious prob-
lem of growing concern are false accusations and structural discrimination: in 2020, Robert
69                                                                       Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(1)

Williams became the first person being discriminated by facial recognition. He had to spend
several hours in jail just because he was classified as suspect based on an algorithmic image
similarity (Hill 2020b). Williams is not a single case, e.g., also Michael Oliver and Nijeer Parks
were arrested because of deficient facial recognition (Hill 2021). A large-scale study in the US
revealed that people of darker skin color become up to 100 times more falsely identified by
facial recognition than whites (NIST 2019). This underlines the problem of inherent bias in
facial recognition and how this kind of technology reinforces institutional racism and other
forms of discrimination. These risks aggravate also in Europe due to increasing tendencies to
extend the use of biometrics for law enforcement. As aforementioned, the EU commission
plans a new Directive to foster automated data exchange for police authorities, including a
stronger focus on biometrics, particularly facial recognition. Several civil rights organizations
expressed concerns arguing that this paves the way for mass surveillance and the erosion of
the presumption of innocence, which is a core principle of democracy. Criticism also includes
examples of former misuse and systematic flaws in data protection (EDRi 2022).
   As biometrics imply reducing bodily features to digital data, this can also affect bodily integ-
rity and human dignity. These human rights aim to ensure self-determination of humans over
their own bodies. According to Art. 1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EUCFR):
“Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected.” Art. 3 EUCFR determines
that: “1. Everyone has the right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity”. How-
ever, a significant increase in biometric practices further strains these rights. Even without
direct abuse, autonomy and self-determination are affected: contemporary biometrics often
uses automated AI and machine learning techniques to detect and predict user behavior. This
constrains individuals in their privacy and agency to self-determine how their biometric infor-
mation is being used. AI, IoT, augmented and virtual reality settings and the related increase
in remote sensor technology will likely aggravate these problems (Gordon et al. 2021). On the
longer run, individuals may become increasingly hampered in freely deciding about the use of
information concerning their identities and their human body. Hence, a violation of your pri-
vacy then might automatically imply a violation of the integrity of your body and your dignity.


4. Concluding remarks

   As shown, biometrics is more than yet-another-identification technology: it has a substan-
tial impact on embodiment and how humans use and are used by technology. The extended
use of biometric information has consequences for its persistence and durability. Given the
identifiable nature and irreversibility of biometric features, every interaction involving biom-
etrics conveys strong identifiability of the person. This paper thus argues that the ongoing
expansion of biometrics entails far-reaching sociotechnical shifts which imply a significant
expansion of identifiability of individuals with substantial consequences on human rights
and the role of technology in society. This development is yet underestimated in public dis-
course as well among policy makers and requires a broader societal debate and regulatory
measures to reduce the corresponding risks. More precisely, because: 1) biometric informa-
tion is bound to human bodies and thus irreversible, which makes individuals more vulner-
Strauß                                                                                         70

able to misuse; 2) the shift from a security towards a broadly used convenience technology
fosters habituation effects and an incremental compulsion to provide biometric features; 3)
the extensive use of biometric systems facilitates misuse, undermines secure processing of
biometric information, reinforces surveillance tendencies, security risks and data protection
issues; 4) biometrics used as automated control technology seriously strain human rights as it
reinforces risks of discrimination and increasingly affects human dignity.
   In the past, biometric technology was basically framed and used as security and surveillance
technology in a limited number of application contexts. Extended usage was controversially
discussed among researchers, policy makers, private and public stakeholders along the thin line
between security governance and surveillance. However, during the last decade, a significant
shift occurred where biometrics became partially re-framed – towards a commercial conveni-
ence technology increasingly embedded in various domains of everyday life. This development
fosters habituation effects as people get more used to providing their biometric features. Differ-
ent but interrelated economic and political drivers stimulate this development to make biomet-
rics a mainstream technology for identification of individuals in public and private services, on-
line and mobile applications and in law enforcement. This global trend to further broaden the
use of biometrics and alleged gains in security and convenience make the surveillance capacity
and manifold risks of this technology less obvious. This can lead to an incremental obligation
to biometric identification which is already observable in some contexts (e.g., in banking or
payment apps, digital wallets etc.) where non-biometric alternatives decrease. Moreover, with
the increasing trend to distant biometric identification like facial recognition, individuals are
widely exposed to biometric surveillance and related risks of social sorting and discrimination.
   Beyond common surveillance practices, biometrics is a very substantial and expansive con-
trol technology reinforcing the excursion of institutional power over human bodies. On a
more general level, the extensive use of biometrics is a form of power entanglement through
technology. Its growing diffusion aggravates a core problem of digital identification (Strauß
2019): expanding information asymmetries between individuals and institutional actors im-
plementing, performing and governing identification. This makes biometrics a highly intru-
sive technology which raises a number of societal and ethical issues. The broader the use of
biometric features over different application contexts becomes, the more biometric systems
may turn into a global assemblage of potentially interconnected ID systems. This is a crucial
issue and a main reason for the highly intrusive nature of biometric technology: although
there is no global biometric ID system, there is a serious risk, that the increasing use of biom-
etrics leads to a blurry conglomerate of different but interwoven political control practices.
   On the longer run, biometrics as mainstream technology may stimulate a reductionistic
framing of individuals over their biometric information as commodified objects of control
for political and economic purposes. In this framing, the individual is at risk to become re-
duced to a set of biometric features which serve as a sort of currency, e.g., to trade bodily
information for gaining access to services or obtaining particular rights. One may argue that
identity information was ever used in this regard. However, it is different with biometrics as
you can never opt-out from your body. The simple reason for this lies in the irreversibility of
biometric features and its inevitable linkage to the body. This also affects the vulnerability of
individuals as their biometric features can be misused and are, in contrast to other forms of
71                                                                               Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(1)

identity information, not easily revocable and changeable. Hence, abuse can be very harmful,
particular for individual persons. Biometrics is often not as secure as promoted and its usage
only makes sense in very clearly defined, safe environments where misuse is very unlikely but
not as mainstream technology. The growing cases of security breaches, attacks on biometric
systems, of privacy violations and other forms of data abuse underlines that a further expan-
sion of biometrics entails serious societal threats.
   Expansion is also likely because biometrics is closely connected to AI-based technology
and other forms of automated systems interacting with humans. These technologies basically
use digital sensors to gain information about their environment and whenever interaction
involves humans, biometrics is involved (e.g., via facial or voice recognition etc.). Techno-
logical trends like the IoT, as well as augmented and mixed realities imply a further increase
in embedded sensors and biometric identification practices. Hence, an extensive growth in
systems gathering and processing bodily features can be expected. If this expansion proceeds,
the consequences for society and democracy can be severe: a further erosion of anonymity,
privacy and related human rights, decreasing autonomy, agency and self-determination, in-
creasing risks of data and security breaches like identity theft, increasing risks of social sorting,
discrimination, and decreasing rights concerning bodily integrity and human dignity.
   To circumvent these urges for a thorough societal debate on the risks of biometrics and
stricter regulation of its usage contexts. Explicit prohibition is a blurry legal debate. Although
the GDPR basically treats biometric data as sensitive, stronger protection is hampered by sev-
eral gray areas in policy and legal regulations. Art. 9 of the GDPR prohibits the processing of
biometric data the purpose of uniquely identifying natural persons. However, as biometrics
are coupled to the human body and thus to the identity of a person, it is hardly avoidable that
biometrics serve identification purposes. In practice, this is indistinct and mostly remains
undetected. For instance, the extent to which facial images or photos (e.g., selfies) provide
biometric information is often unclear. This facilitates unethical practices of data gathering
as the outlined cases of Pimeyes and Clearview AI highlight. A legal clarification that facial
images need protection from misuse as they can provide biometric information would con-
tribute to ease this situation. A pressing issue concerns the increasing risk of discrimination
based on biometric recognition which underlines the need for more effective rights against
discrimination through technology and the strengthening of rights concerning human dig-
nity and the integrity of the body. Given the enormous risks of a broad use of biometrics not
just for abuse but for an erosion of democracy suggests the prohibition of commercial use of
biometrics with accordingly high sanctions in case of abuse. This would contribute to make
abuse less attractive. If society fails to tame the current proliferation of biometric systems, re-
lated business models and political power claims, in a not-so-distant future, anonymity might
be diminishing and the inviolability of human dignity reduced to a statistical score.


Notes
     1
       Induced by the ICAO (the International Civil Aviation Organization), a sub-unit of the United Nations.
     2 Regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal
Strauß                                                                                                72

market (https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eidas-regulation).
   3 Payment Services (PSD 2) Directive (https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/payment-services-psd-2-direc-
tive-eu-2015-2366_en).
   4 Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation
(EU) No 910/2014 as regards establishing a framework for a European Digital Identity (https://digi-
tal-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/trusted-and-secure-european-e-id-regulation).
   5 The Prüm Convention (also known als Schengen III Agreement) is a European law enforcement
treaty signed on May 27 2005 in the city of Prüm in Germany. It regulates data exchange for law en-
forcement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCm_Convention). Since 2020, plans foresee a sig-
nificant extension of data exchange regulated by this legal framework (see EP 2020).
   6 One Trust Data Guidance, Baden-Württemberg: LfDI Baden-Württemberg initiates proceedings
against PimEyes to determine GDPR compliance (May 28, 2021). Available at: https://www.dataguid-
ance.com/news/baden-w%C3%BCrttemberg-lfdi-baden-w%C3%BCrttemberg-initiates.



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