IT Ethics: Biometrics, Civil Liberties, and Ethical Challenges

This essay examines the ethical implications of biometric technologies, focusing on their impact on civil liberties. It discusses the widespread use of biometric sensors like fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, particularly in public spaces, while acknowledging their role in security and crime prevention. The essay highlights ethical concerns arising from the vast amounts of personal data collected, including the potential for cyberattacks and misuse of information, leading to breaches of privacy and limitations on individual freedoms. The essay cites examples such as the potential for location tracking, the creation of controlled societies, and the framing of innocent individuals. The essay also considers the impact on religious practices and the potential for future cloning technologies, concluding with a discussion of the views of privacy experts on the threats biometrics pose to civil liberties.

INFRMATION
TECHNOLOGY ETHICS

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Biometrics from the civil liberties perspective
Biometric technologies are widely used at different places for the purpose of security
especially at the airports and large stadiums. Finger print scanners, face recognition programs
and iris scanners are some of the biometric sensors that are used at the public places (Miltgen,
Popovič & Oliveira, 2013). In spite of the fact that government is able to catch criminals and
stop many criminal activities due to use of these technologies, there are many other kinds of
challenges related to ethics that occurs due to the use of this technology. Many of the people
are opposing the development of these technologies from the perspective of civil liberties.
First ethical issues that arise due to use of these technologies are that it gives some
institutions a tremendous amount of personal data. Such a large amount of data creates the
chances of bigger cyber-attacks which can give access to personal data of the people to the
institutions or person who can misuse it for their personal benefits. Civil-liberty rights have
been breached many a times with the use of such technologies. Real-time information about
an individual regarding what he or she is doing and the places he has visited can create
problems for the people (Mordini & Tzovaras, 2012).
Use of these technologies is taking freedom of the people. For example the utilisation of such
technologies gives the idea about the location of the people at any place. This is breach of
privacy and at the same time it gives some institutions unwanted rights to store the data of the
people. It is creating a controlled society where the master key lies with the authorities.
Governments are using it for their own benefits and at the same time police sometimes uses it
for framing cases against the innocents (Sutrop & Laas‐Mikko, 2012). For instance some
innocents are just framed because they were present at the crime scene.
Roger Clarke an privacy expert expresses that “any high-integrity identifier represents a
threat to civil liberties due to the fact that it represents the basis of ubiquitous identification
scheme and the similar schemes provides states with enormous powers over the masses as all
the behaviour of the individual will be transparent to the state and the scope for non-
conformism and dissent would be muted to the level predicted by the anti-utopian novelists
(Campisi, 2013).
Civil liberties are also under the question mark with the use of similar technologies as
governments are able to known about the appearance of the people. Sometimes it forces
people to use the unhygienic recognition instruments that might have impact on the health of
the individuals. Religious obligations also come in between the use of such technologies. For

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instance in Muslims, women wear hijab, religiously they are not permitted to show their face
but in the case of face recognition system they have to open their hijab (Gibbs, 2010). This is
also the breach of the social rights of the individuals. With the amount of innovation that is
going on in the technologies, it is highly likely that cloning can be done hence this problem is
going to get bigger in the future.

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References
Campisi, P. (2013). Security and privacy in biometrics (Vol. 24). London, UK:: Springer.
Gibbs, M. D. (2010). Biometrics: body odor authentication perception and acceptance. ACM SIGCAS
Computers and Society, 40(4), 16-24.
Miltgen, C. L., Popovič, A., & Oliveira, T. (2013). Determinants of end-user acceptance of biometrics:
Integrating the “Big 3” of technology acceptance with privacy context. Decision Support
Systems, 56, 103-114.
Mordini, E., & Tzovaras, D. (Eds.). (2012). Second generation biometrics: The ethical, legal and social
context (Vol. 11). Springer Science & Business Media.
Sutrop, M., & Laas‐Mikko, K. (2012). From identity verification to behavior prediction: Ethical
implications of second generation biometrics. Review of policy research, 29(1), 21-36.