Right now there is a flurry of media interest in biometrics. This sounds very scientific and mysterious but in fact it simply means the measurement (metrics) of living things (bio). So your height and weight are biometrics, for example. Recognition depends on a whole complex pattern of biometrics, whether it’s your mother, your cat, or your potted plant. All animals have this astonishing skill.
Like most our skills this is about to be taken over by machines. The so-called security procedures we use on our computers are becoming more and more useless. So the new idea is to use biometrics to identify ourselves: eye scans, fingerprint scans, or even heartbeat scans. These are supposed to be unique to each individual, so that no cheating is possible.
I would like to say that this is the most ridiculous idea that I have ever heard, but there are so many stronger candidates for that distinction including those that appear in the election coverage every day. It is no doubt a wonderful business opportunity for the makers of biometric scanning machines, but for the rest of us it is just another technological distraction that won’t work. It certainly won’t work for me because much of it depends on having a smart phone always in your pocket, and I don’t even own one of those irritating things. I do have a laptop that is supposed to recognize my fingerprint, but that system has never worked.
Here’s an historic memory of how security used to work before smart phones were invented. I would go to my bank, the tellers would almost always recognize me (no doubt using biometrics) and address me by name, and the manager would also know exactly who I was, if only because of the size of my overdraft. How complicated is that? The only security risk would have come from having an identical twin in the neighborhood, and that never happened.
If you have the right mobile gadgets, the right password, and perhaps the right eye patterns, you can pay many of your bills electronically without ever going near a bank. But even if you don’t have these high-tech options, some sort of commerce is still possible. Just before I wrote this we went to the local market. When we bought some cheese the stallholder added up the price on a piece of paper, we handed her some bills and coins, and the transaction was complete. No beeps, no passwords, no pin numbers – nothing could have been simpler. The cheese was good too.
Biometrics would be a wonderful idea if computers were infallible. You may have noticed that they are not. Two weeks ago, the huge internet company that carries my main email account suddenly refused to recognize my password, my account number or my security questions, all of which were in fact correct. They then sent a temporary password to an e-mail address that is not mine, and advised me to call a help number that never answered. So I went to the post office, bought some stamps and sent some real letters advising friends never to use that particular e-mail account, or indeed that particular company. The lady behind the counter in the post office recognized me, there was no security check, no intrusive questions were asked, and my letters arrived. How complicated is that?
Copyright: David Bouchier
