Seeing Like a Citizen: Exploring Public Views of Biometrics
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321718766736 |
| Author | Aletta Norval,Elpida Prasopoulou |
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321718766736
Political Studies
2019, Vol. 67(2) 367 –387
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321718766736
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Seeing Like a Citizen:
Exploring Public Views
of Biometrics
Aletta Norval1 and Elpida Prasopoulou2
Abstract
Despite its controversial history and significant diffusion of biometrics from institutional settings
such as border control and policing to everyday use in commerce and personal devices, biometrics
is now being re-positioned as a neutral means to safeguard identity in the digital world. Given
this proliferation of uses, we argue that understanding perceptions of biometrics among ordinary
citizens is necessary and long overdue. Situating our analysis in the wider context of the views
of government and biometric industry experts, we deploy Q-methodology in combination with
political discourse analysis to examine the range of positions that have crystallized in ordinary
discourse on issues arising from the use of biometrics for identification. Our analysis uncovers
four distinctive configurations that put into question a simplistic trade-off between security and
privacy that dominates government and industry discourse and underlines the importance of going
beyond a narrow view of technology ‘users’ to understand the political and social concerns that
arise with and shape the uses of technology in contemporary society.
Keywords
biometrics, political discourse analysis, Q-method, digital citizenship
Accepted: 13 February 2018
Introduction
In 2004, Giorgio Agamben (2004), a renowned political philosopher, cancelled a visit to
New York because US border control involved extensive use of biometrics. More than a
decade later, refusing to travel does not protect one from biometric identification; the use
of biometrics now extends far beyond border control into multiple areas of everyday life.
More physiological features are being used as biometric identifiers across physical and
digital contexts. Fingerprints are incorporated into personal devices such as laptops and
smartphones and widely used in the banking industry. Face recognition is extensively
1Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK
2Centre for Business in Society, Coventry University, Coventry, UK
Corresponding author:
Aletta Norval, Anglia Ruskin University, Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SQ, UK.
Email: aletta.norval@anglia.ac.uk
766736PSX0010.1177/0032321718766736Political StudiesNorval and Prasopoulou
research-article2018
Article
368 Political Studies 67(2)
deployed in online social networks (Norval and Prasopoulou, 2017), and new forms of
biometrics are used in consumer electronics to help cultivate healthier lifestyles. These
developments have profound consequences for citizens whose data are being mined and
for policy-makers who both use and set the policy context for data use.
In this article, we examine the views of young adults on the use of biometrics for iden-
tity management. Our aim is to bring the voices of the lay public back into a debate that
has been dominated by security experts and technical policy reports (Callon et al., 2009).
Our analysis seeks to make visible the distinct patterns into which ordinary views of the
use of biometrics in a range of settings – from policing to everyday use in personal devices
– crystallize (Danielson et al., 2012). In contrast to survey methodology, we do not seek
to collect and aggregate individual views on biometrics. Using a combination of Political
Discourse Analysis (PDA) and Q-method allows us to make visible specific subject posi-
tions (Davies and Harre 1990: 46), drawn from the available range of discourses on a
topic, with which individuals identify. PDA facilitates analysis of publicly available dis-
cursive horizons that shape what can be said and done with biometrics. Q-method allows
us to empirically capture how biometrics is viewed through asking participants to sort a
series of statements selected from the publicly available discourses on biometrics. Thus,
we analyse both the breadth of debate generated by actors such as governments, policy-
making and civil society organizations on the use of biometrics and the distribution of
preferences and distinctive patterns in which they coagulate. Moving beyond a narrow
technological focus, we highlight broader concerns over digital citizenship in a context
where there is an ever more widespread use of biometrics in public and private life.
Our approach departs from existing academic research that focuses on post-9/11 use of
biometrics in border control settings, terrorist threats and immigration policy (Bigo,
2005; Cote-Boucher, 2008; Magnet, 2011; Muller, 2004). We situate our research in the
context of work challenging a simplistic security/privacy trade-off (Chandler, 2009; De
Goede, 2014; Friedewald et al., 2017; Pavone et al., 2016) in favour of a focus on privacy
and security as social and cultural constructs (Dourish and Anderson, 2006). Thus, our
work falls within a wider turn to the ‘everyday’ and a focus on ‘vernacular’ constructions
of security (Vaughan-Williams and Stevens, 2015) while seeking to go beyond a securiti-
zation frame. We argue that concentration on security experts has limited interest in citi-
zens’ views on the uses of biometrics, as well as active engagement with the lay public in
policy-making (Omand, 2010: 73). Similarly, industry-led studies focusing on the user-
acceptance of specific technologies fail to grasp the implications of the extension of
biometrics from a security to an everyday context (Norval and Prasopoulou, 2017).
Challenging the implicit assumption, by both proponents and critics of biometrics, that
the lay public is unable to negotiate conflicting demands arising from the impact of tech-
nological change on their lives (Lanier, 2014), our study contributes to a growing engage-
ment with how the views of citizens can and should inform policy in this area (Hoofnagle
and Urban, 2014; Pavone et al., 2017; Turow et al., 2015) even while acknowledging the
urgent need for better citizen education to address what Hoofnagle and Urban (2014: 266)
call the ‘knowledge gap’.
Our approach is further distinctive in the emphasis it places on how ‘biometrics’ is
given meaning in and through available discourses that shape what biometric technolo-
gies may legitimately be used for, on the nature of role of government and industry pro-
motion of biometrics and on the scope for contestation around these uses. In this respect,
our approach resonates strongly with work on the co-production of technologies and their
embedding in social identities, institutions and discourses (Jansanoff, 2004). In seeking to
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