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Chapter 7 - Privacy, surveillance and population management: the turn to biometrics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2019

Jane Duncan
Affiliation:
University of Johannesburg
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Summary

This chapter examines the use of biometrics as an enabler of state surveillance in various state-run population management functions in South Africa. Biometrics involves the measurement and analysis of unique physical characteristics for the purposes of identification, the most commonly used being irises, fingerprints, voice or DNA. State agencies that use biometric identifiers assume that this form of identification is much more reliable than barcodes or personal identification numbers (PINs), as they relate to a person's unalterable features. Facial recognition technologies used in the context of CCTV surveillance (discussed in the previous chapter) are a form of biometrics, as they use people's facial features to identify them. However, that physical characteristics are used for identity management at all triggers privacy concerns in that some of the most personal features of an individual – namely body parts – are collected and stored by the state for identification purposes, thereby interfering with a person's bodily autonomy and hence privacy. Biometrics enables state surveillance in very powerful ways, as it provides the state with some of the most intimate details about a person to monitor them and track their movements.

It is thus small wonder that biometric information is so heavily sought after by spy agencies. In 2010, for instance, it emerged that the US government had run an intelligence campaign to collect the biometric information of the most senior UN officials, including Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and certain UN Security Council members. While it was unclear why this information was needed, it could potentially have been used to hack into the UN officials’ communications, to the extent that they were protected using biometric identifiers. Snowden's leaks revealed that the NSA was collecting millions of faces from web images as part of its mass surveillance programmes, with the intention of running them through facial recognition software and increasing the agency's ability to find intelligence targets around the world. While traditional communications were still a major source of intelligence, for the NSA it was important to exploit a broader range of data sources to enable it to undertake a ‘full arsenal’ approach to surveillance, in which the agency could develop more comprehensive profiles of individuals.

Type
Chapter
Information
Stopping the Spies
Constructing and resisting the surveillance state in South Africa
, pp. 165 - 184
Publisher: Wits University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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