There's a market for software that recognizes your face and
fingerprints, but also increasing fear that Big Brother will be the
one staring hard at your eyes and nose.
By Sam Williams, Salon.com
Ten years ago, Dr. Joseph Atick was a Rockefeller University research
scientist sitting atop an intriguing and potentially lucrative
breakthrough in the realm of pattern recognition.
In an attempt to mimic how the human brain processes sensory signals,
Atick and his research team developed a computational model that
zeroes in on a person's facial landmarks and measures the relative
distances between them. Once stored, these measurements become, in
essence, a template unique enough to match individuals with their
photo-ID or mugshot images in various, controlled situations.
For Atick, a mathematical physicist by training, the future boiled
down to two choices: He could debate the implications of that
breakthrough amid the safe, quasi-utopian world of academia, or he
could try to put it to work in the messy, dynamic world of commercial
software.
"It was almost like a curse," says Atick, now the chief executive
officer of Identix, a Minnesota-based leader in fingerprint- and
facial-recognition technology. "You're cursed with the blessing of
knowing something important, something that society wants. You feel
like it belongs to society and not to you."
The notion of curses attached to certain elements of human knowledge
is an apt introduction to the field of biometric software, the
blanket term used to describe software built to identify or
authenticate human users from digitally captured physical data. Like
genetic engineering and nuclear power, it is a field where innovation
and controversy go hand in hand and where ordinary researchers must
constantly weigh the long-term implications of their work. Toss in
the vagaries of a marketplace where governments, police departments
and other slow-moving bureaucracies play the role of lead customers
and early adopters, and the "curse" image seems almost too good to
ignore.
As the field's own evangelists note, it is an industry niche where
optimism and reality often have a hard time making a connection.
"The perception out there is that with all this money the government
is funneling into [biometric security], it should be growing like
gangbusters," says Jeff Watkins, a senior technology consultant for
the International Biometric Group, a New York consulting firm.
"Although you do have a number of companies that are growing, they're
certainly not growing with the speed that we saw with other software
and technology segments."
Watkins' own company has put the sector's rate of growth at 44
percent per year, a rate that would put the global biometric industry
over the billion-dollar mark by the end of the 2004. Such numbers
date back to 2002, however, when the sector was enjoying a sustained
period of positive press in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.
Since then, the media's attention has chilled slightly as journalists
have zeroed in on the ethical and technological challenges that still
impede the use of biometric security as a cheap replacement for
flesh-and-blood security. As civil rights groups have focused their
ire on the U.S. PATRIOT Act and other post-9/11 expansions of federal
policing authority, biometric companies have, for the most part,
retreated into the background of the dispute.
For biometric entrepreneurs, the dimming of the media spotlight has
brought an associated decrease in venture capital and IPO prospects.
Still, given the controversial nature of the business, many seem to
have welcomed the recent quiet.
"After 9/11, a lot of noise entered the system," says Atick. "In a
way it ended up delaying things, because people got confused about
what was available. Luckily the confusion goes away through a
natural-selection process."
The quiet period may be ending. Last month, the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security unveiled its controversial U.S. Visitor and
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, or US-VISIT program. Budgeted
at just over $1 billion for the next three fiscal years, the program
will install electronic fingerprint scanners and cameras at 115 U.S.
airports and 14 U.S. seaports. At the moment, only visitors from
certain countries must submit to fingerprinting. Exempt countries
have a limited period to implement their own face-recognition or
machine-readable passport systems in accordance with recommendations
put out by the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO,
the United Nations standard-setting body for international air travel.
The American Civil Liberties Union has been quick to criticize the
US-VISIT program. Jay Stanley, spokesperson for the ACLU's Technology
and Liberty program, says US-VISIT epitomizes the uphill fight
privacy advocates have to face every time a large-scale biometric
system is rolled out.
"You have to look at the incentives," Stanley says. "For companies
and governments, the incentives associated with biometrics all point
the other way from privacy. The incentives are for more data
collection and better linking of different records until, finally,
you have the ability to create a rich portrait of a person's life and
activities."
Biometric entrepreneurs don't entirely disagree. Andy Amanovich,
senior technology strategist for and co-founder of Imagis
Technologies, a Vancouver facial-recognition software firm, says a
sizable portion of his job is devoted to dampening expectations on
the customer side.
"I think there really is a hope out there that you can take a
database with the names of 1,000 al-Qaida terrorists, wipe off the
sand, and start matching those names to faces as they pass through an
airport," says Andy Amanovich.
That his company is unable to offer such capabilities is encouraging
from both a technical and an ethical perspective, says Amanovich.
Clandestine surveillance systems that can capture a facial image or
iris scan off a moving target and compare that image to an existing
database may be common in movies like "Mission Impossible" and
"Minority Report," but in reality, they are a few decades away in
terms of mathematics and processing power.
"Which I'm glad about," says Amanovich. "I happen to like freedom and
democracy."
Amanovich's own company exemplifies the field's current, unhyped
capabilities. Imagis sells a facial-recognition software package
dubbed ID2000 to police departments for use in patrol car computers.
During an arrest, police take a digital photo of the suspect and run
it against an existing database of mug shots.
As in most other software systems, the really heavy lifting is
conducted on the back end, and Imagis supplements its offering with a
Microsoft .Net-based set of services and tools designed to facilitate
data sharing across a distributed, Internet-based system.
Although there are still privacy implications, the use of ID2000
builds on existing methods of police procedure and adheres to
constitutional safeguards such as probable cause, which makes it less
of a red flag for groups such as the ACLU.
"I don't think we'd have as much of a problem with something like
that," says Stanley. "Our biggest problems with face recognition come
in situations where it's used for routine surveillance of individuals
and from the fact that it's ineffective as a security measure."
For a look at systems that draw the full ire of groups like the ACLU,
one need only go back a few years to FaceIt, a closed-circuit
facial-recognition system used by the Tampa Police Department in the
Ybor City nightlife and entertainment district from 2001 until last
year. Built by Visionics, a pre-merger incarnation of Atick's
Identix, the system was doubly cursed. Technical glitches limited its
crime-fighting performance to the point that the Tampa police were
unable to claim a single positive ID after two years of performance.
The negative publicity, meanwhile, helped forge an unlikely alliance
between the ACLU and prominent conservatives, including Republican
Rep. Dick Armey, then the House majority leader.
"We are taking a step in the wrong direction if we allow this
powerful technology to be turned against citizens who have done no
wrong," said Armey at the time.
Two years later, Atick seems unscarred by the criticism aimed at
FaceIt. For one thing, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, have reduced the
general public's aversion to biometric security. Second, Atick sees
public disapproval as a helpful part of the technology-shaping
process. Viewing the marketplace in Darwinian terms, Atick sees
outrage as the functional equivalent of natural selection.
"Society, by defining which technologies are going to be adopted, can
decide which technologies are viable," Atick says.
Noting the current market niches, Atick says the alarm stirred up by
the 2001-2003 FaceIt trial has reinforced the need for a stronger
display of the quid pro quo bargain inherent in most security systems.
"When you capture a biometric you have to be sure that you as the end
user own the biometric," Atick says. "The reason I'm giving it to you
is because you're giving me something, some privilege in exchange. As
long as you give me something in exchange and I agree to give you
this, and there are groups to audit that process, I think we can
create a situation where people can use the technology without too
much hesitation."
Still, given the evolving dynamics of the field and lingering
misconceptions about the current abilities of most biometric systems,
some entrepreneurs see a need to speed the decision-making loop.
Serge Belongie, co-founder of the fingerprint-recognition company
Digital Persona, is a UC-San Diego computer scientist who, unlike
Atick, chose to remain in academia after releasing his technology
innovations into the wild. The decision has not distanced him from
the ethical implications of the field, however, so in 2000, doing
double duty as Digital Persona's chief research officer, Belongie
helped put together an exhibit on biometrics and body scanning at the
San Francisco Exploratorium.
Titled "Revealing Bodies," the exhibit was a five-kiosk display. At
the first kiosk, Belongie says, visitors registered their
fingerprints and entered additional personal information. At the next
three kiosks, visitors who submitted to fingerprint scans were
welcomed back, by name, and given additional information about other,
related technologies. At the final kiosk, users received a notice
that their fingerprint templates and responses to queries would be
deleted from the system but not immediately.
"Basically, we said, 'Now think about what happened. We know all
these things about you. How does that make you feel?'"
In the resulting feedback forms, emotions ranged from awe to anger,
Belongie says. Though some protested the fingerprint scans, many
offered questions like "What happens if I lose my finger?" "What if
somebody fakes my fingerprint?" or "How can I get one of these
myself?" Overall, Belongie says, respondents were "very engaged" and
optimistic about the potential uses.
"They liked that a biometrics company was asking these questions," he says.
Looking at alternative uses like US-VISIT, Belongie, whose own
company has shied away from the government-services market, has yet
to make up his mind on whether such uses deserve the same optimism.
"Way back in 1993 when we started doing this stuff, I had no idea if
it would succeed, but I could imagine people putting down a
thumbprint to get on an airplane," Belongie says. "That said, I have
not made up my mind yet about the pros and cons of US-VISIT. As a
university professor, the so-called war on terror concerns me very
much because of the difficulties it is causing for international
students. I can see how performing biometric recognition at airports
and seaports could catch known terrorists who are attempting to
arrive in the U.S. via airports and seaports. This possible benefit
provides me little comfort, however, in the face of escalating hatred
and resentment toward the U.S."
Atick, on the other hand, considers a US-VISIT a "coup" both for the
industry and for the U.S. government which, in citing the ICAO call
for biometric security safeguards, has put other developed nations in
a tough position to condemn the move. That said, Atick, noting the
curse that brought him into the field, says the resulting political
backlash, if it ever emerges, will be equally helpful for setting the
future course of the industry.
"This is not an industry you can be neutral about," Atick says. "This
is an industry that changes the way people travel and provide
information to one another. If you're out of touch with people's
attitudes about it, you're going to face significant resistance. If
on the other hand you're going to provide a beneficial service,
you're better aligning yourself with where society is heading."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Sam Williams is a freelance reporter who covers software and
software-development culture. He is also the author of "Free as in
Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software."
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