Who's Who?

AuthorDaniel Neyland
Published date01 March 2009
DOI10.1177/1477370808100543
Date01 March 2009
Subject MatterArticles
Who’s Who?
The Biometric Future and the Politics of Identity
Daniel Neyland
Lancaster University, UK
ABSTRACT
This article engages empirically with the futures of biometric identification. It does
so by engaging with the current UK political debate regarding the introduction
of identity cards, by participating in a trial of biometric technologies and by
working with an organisational setting where ID cards would be introduced
(an airport). The article suggests that, although social science can not predict
the future, it can map out ways to engage with technological uncertainty, the
challenges of producing and mobilizing identity and the politics of technology
development. The article argues that detailed engagement with these areas
is currently neglected and that such neglect leaves problematic spaces in
discussions regarding the development of biometric technologies.
KEY WORDS
Biometrics / ID Cards / Airports / Futures.
Introduction
There has been a significant social history of branding the body or consti-
tuting features of the body as a means to categorize, specify and segregate
populations along lines of claimed identity. Tattooing, scarring and hair-
cutting as embodied branding (Schildkrout 2004), fingerprinting (Cole
1998) and phrenology (Allen 1846) as evidence of categorical membership,
form a few examples of constituted bodily identifications. In recent years
tech nological developments and advances in the techniques of biometrics
(see, for example, the work of van der Ploeg 2003) have led to claims re-
garding the increasing ease of identity constitution, identity corroboration
Volume 6 (2): 135–155: 1477-3708
DOI: 10.1177/1477370808100543
Copyright © 2009 European Society of
Criminology and SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC
www.sagepublications.com
136 European Journal of Criminology 6(2)
and identity mobilization (UK Home Office 2005). These technologies of
identity have attained a pervasive resonance across Europe (in biometric
passport developments) and beyond (for example, with biometric entry/exit
points to the USA).
In the UK these advances have shifted arguments in the long-standing
political debate surrounding the possible introduction of national identity
cards. Arguments regarding the importance of identity, knowing who
someone is and being able to demonstrate one’s own identity have formed
consistent features of this debate. However, biometrics in the form of iris-
scans, facial recognition systems and fingerprinting technology have shifted
attention toward the number of possible ways in which rapid identity consti-
tution, corroboration and mobilization could be utilized. In place of the
restricted use of identity assessments in relation to criminal activity or border
security, the biometric identity card may now be utilized in order to assess
the legitimacy of claims to access, amongst other things, social welfare,
medical treatment, air travel and money. The digitization of bio metric
identity might mean an iris, fingerprint or facial scan could be compiled
with, for example, credit rating, medical history and criminal record. Thus
assessments of identity may not only involve questions of who a particular
person is, but broader assessments of their history, interests and status
(medical, criminal, financial, citizenship). Without regard for the history
of embodied branding that has been treated as notably ‘other’ by western
societies (Mascia-Lees and Sharpe 1992), the pervasive requirements for
participation in a national biometric identity scheme, renders the banal
blink of an eye in a hospital waiting room by anybody as the initiation of a
process of bodily categorization, corroboration and mobilized assessment.
This article will utilize data from an on-going study of technology and
identity featuring biometrics to ask: how are claims for the legitimacy of
this technology being articulated? Does the technology work and on what
grounds might it be assessed? How should social science be involved in this
politics of identity? The article will use these questions to engage with the
global politics of identity envisaged in claims regarding the future of bio-
metric technologies. This article will address these questions through, first,
introducing theoretical and methodological sensibilities through which the
biometric future and politics of identity can be considered. Second, the
article will analyse particular argumentative movements toward biometric
ID cards. Third, the article will consider the practicalities of biometric ID
cards in technology trials and airports. Finally, the article will conclude
with suggestions on the ways in which social science can engage with the
politics of identity.

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