Identity as convention: biometric passports and the promise of security
| Published date | 04 March 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-08-2013-0029 |
| Pages | 44-59 |
| Date | 04 March 2014 |
| Author | Maren Behrensen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance |
Identity as convention:
biometric passports and
the promise of security
Maren Behrensen
Centre for Applied Ethics, IKK, Linko
¨ping University, Linko
¨ping, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – The paper is a conceptual investigation of the metaphysics of personal identity and the
ethics of biometric passports. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach – Philosophical argument, discussing both the metaphysical and
the social ethics/computer ethics literature on personal identity and biometry.
Findings – The author argues for three central claims in this paper: passport are not simply
representations of personal identity, they help constitute personal identity. Personal identity is not a
metaphysical fact, but a set of practices, among them identity management practices (e.g. population
registries)employed by governments.The use of biometry as part of these identitymanagement practices
is not an ethicalproblem as such, nor is it something fundamentallynew and different compared to older
ways of establishingpersonal identity.It is worrisome, however, since in thecurrent political climate, it is
systematicallyused to deny persons access to specific territories, rights, and benefits.
Originality/value – The paper ties together strands of philosophical inquiry that do not usually
converse with one another, namely the metaphysics of personal identity, and the topic of identity in
social philosophy and computer ethics.
Keywords Biometric passports, Conventionalism,Ethics of migration, Identitypractices,
Personal identity
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
This paper takes its starting point from a seemingly trivial question: what is a passport?
Passports are treated (by police, by border guards, by tax or welfare agencies) as “proof
of identity.” They can indicate their owner’s legal status (as a citizen, resident, visitor,
unauthorized migrant) depending on geographical location and the presence or absence
of specific markers such as visas or stamps. Possession of a valid passport is, in most
cases, a necessary condition for legally crossing an international border . Passports can
also indicate their owner’s membership in certain social groups: at the very least, they
indicate their owner’s nationality[1]. Passports also contain individualized
information about their owner: their name, their date and place of birth. In most
contemporary passports, this individualized information is linked to biometric data:
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
Research for this paper was carried out with funding from the EU-FP7 FIDELITY large-scale
integrating project (Grant No. SEC-2011-284862). Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at a
colloquium at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and at conferences in Amsterdam
(“Illegality Regimes” at the Free University Amsterdam) and Kolding (“ETHICOMP” at
University of Southern Denmark). The author would like to thank those who attended these
presentations for their questions and comments. The author is particularly grateful to
Jeffrey Kahn, who introduced the paper in Amsterdam, and whose generous feedback has
undoubtedly improved its argument.
Received 15 August 2013
Revised 30 September 2013
Accepted 1 October 2013
Journal of Information,
Communication and Ethics in Society
Vol. 12 No. 1, 2014
pp. 44-59
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-08-2013-0029
JICES
12,1
44
usually a photograph of the owner’s face and additional biometric data, such as their
fingerprints stored on a machine-readable chip. Future passports might also contain
information about their owner’s DNA or iris patterns, all for the sake of making the
passport more secure and more trustworthy (European Commission, 2003, pp. 39-5 2)[2].
It would seem that passports are representations of certain facts about their owner,
and hence, representations of their owner’s identity. If this representation does not
correspond to the actual facts (e.g. if fingerprinting at an automated border gate fails to
produce a match with the prints stored on the passport) the person presenting the
passport would be treated as a fraudster (and in the worst case, as an identity thief).
But the view that information found in the passport simply represents information
about its owner is too simple. My central claim in this paper is that passports
(and similar identification documents such as birth certificates, driving licenses, or
national ID cards) do not represent identity, but help constitute it. Conversely, the loss
of a passport (or similar identification documents) can amount to a loss of identity, and
not being able to produce a passport (or similar identification documents) can severely
impact the moral and legal rights one ought to be afforded simply qua personhood.
The philosophical gist of my argument is both metaphysical and ethical. On the
metaphysical end, I argue for a conventionalist account of personal identity, one that
roots identity in certain legal, political, and social practices (the practices surrounding
the issuance and use of passports are only one subgroup of all relevant identity
conventions, but one that has generally been neglected in philosophical reflection).
On the ethical end, I argue that adopting a conventionalist account of identity can help us
to debunk the promise of security that biometric identification technologies offer.
The promise of security offered by biometry is circular: biometric features are used to
establish an identity (e.g. when fingerprints are taken at the time a person applies for a
passport) only to later be used as proof of the identity they helped to establish (e .g. when
a person has their fingerprints taken at an automated border gate). Identity between
these two events, and between the two uses of biometric features that correspond to
them, is assumed rather than proven.
Conventionalism about identity also brings into focus one aspect of the use of
passports that is often overlooked: passports are not simply individualized documents,
they also function as social sorting devices and thus as instruments of inclusion and
exclusion. Having or not having a (certain sort of) identity document can determine on e’s
status as a trustworthy or untrustworthy person. And thus it can make the difference
between having and not having access to certain rights, benefits, and entitlements.
But before I turn to the ethical implications of my argument, I want to focus on what
I see as the “missing link” in the contemporary debate about identity, biometry,
and ethics: there seems to be almost no conversation between those “identity-scholars”
who are interested in metaphysical questions, and those who are interested in social
and ethical questions. This lack of conversation is a loss for the debate as a whole.
My argument in this paper will proceed as follows: I begin with a brief puzzle about
identity, and I will use this puzzle to illustrate what I take to be the current state of the
debate. Then I move on to metaphysical questions, taking my starting point from
Parfit’s (1984, pt. III, 1995) work on identity. I take issue with Parfit’s claim that
“identity is not what matters” and use my criticism to argue for a conventionalist
account of personal identity. In the final section, I will spell out the ethical concerns
sketched above.
Identity as
convention
45
To continue reading
Request your trial