Monday, February 12, 2007

Department of Homeland Security and Biometric Data Sharing

From Government Computer News
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) believe that governments and companies need to share biometric data internationally to assist in anti-terrorism. Privacy advocates and biometrics professionals feel are pushing back given the current state of privacy controls, policies, and lack of international oversight.

Unfortunately, this issue has played out in the ethical, as opposed to the technical (or better yet - a combination of the two), aspects. The DHS views this as a "We already have the technology to capture and share the information, so why shouldn't we?" Yet, a more helpful way to phrase the problem might be "How can we share biometric data to achieve surveillance and anti-terrorism goals without compromising the privacy of the majority of those who's data is surveilled?"

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