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| Montréal, 22 janvier 2000 / No 54 |
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by
Ralph Maddocks
The two examples of democracy which we quote often, apart from our own, are the United States of America and that home of the Mother of Parliaments, Great Britain. Both have been in the news recently discussing the latest technological methods available to identify and follow up on their respective citizens. Technology which, though still in its embryonic stage, will undoubtedly find use as soon as the bureaucrats and their masters can devise the appropriate rationale to do so. |
| Science
fiction becomes real
The high tech devices we have all seen on the TV or cinema screen are coming closer than you might think; those voiceprint-coded locks, those systems protected by retinal scans and positive fingerprint identification by computer are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Last November, at the Comdex technology show in Las Vegas, two companies, Motorola and Identicator joined forces to develop what is alleged to be the cheapest, smallest, lightest optical reader in the world. The DSR 300, which should cost less than This neat little hand held device uses Motorola's Digital DNA technology and can be used to unlock your car, log on to your computer, make online transactions or operate your cell phone. The latter knowledge must be joyful news to the cell phone operators whose losses from fraud are said to be close to one fifth of their billings. The device is already in use with notebook computers. You simply insert the reader into a universal port on your laptop which has already been programmed to allow only certain biometrically verified user to operate it. According to the makers the device will protect both hardware and software, rendering a stolen laptop completely useless. This technology is being greeted by the government with considerable pleasure. The US government is known to have been developing a public key infrastructure, a database containing identity-verifying biometrics of its citizens. Just why they are doing all this is not yet clear, there is some pious mention of reducing fraud in the obtaining of government services, but it is clear that other less intrusive methods are available. According to the Free Congress Foundation, the US Secret Service is known to have funded a New Hampshire information technology company to set up a tax fraud data base which would allow the government to determine your identity whenever you made a purchase. Questions about the uses to which the government will put this latest technology are answered by the usual mindless remark: This rapidly developing technology has spawned a new trade association based in Washington. One of the first acts of the International Biometric Industry Association (IBIA) was to announce their The advantages of biometric identifiers are alleged by the IBIA to be that they are unique and go where you go. You cannot lose your fingerprint (at least not painlessly) or your retinal pattern, they are harder to steal than, say, your credit cards or SIN number. To employ that hackneyed phrase Big Brother stops your car From over the Atlantic comes news of electronic speed limiters which are aimed at preventing drivers from exceeding the legal speed limits. The technology has already been tested and mandatory installation in all cars will take place within the next ten years. The system works by using the combination of a satellite positioning system to pinpoint the vehicles' location, an onboard computer containing digital maps for each street and road in Britain, encoded with their speed limits, and a device to choke off the car's fuel supply if the car exceeds the permissible speed.
The Safety First people are overjoyed and see this as a way of reducing by two thirds the deaths caused by accidents on Britain's roads each year. Much the same as seat belts were intended to do in fact. They say also that when 60% of cars are so equipped, average traffic speed will have decreased to the point where speed cameras will become redundant and speeding prosecutions eliminated. In addition to accident reduction, they point to the possibility of fuel savings, and the ability to slow down traffic outside schools when the students are entering or leaving. What wasn't mentioned, but no doubt a major point already considered with considerable satisfaction, is that the authorities would also be in a position to find you at will, or at least to find your car, no matter where you may be in the country, or presumably in any other country. Whether such devices would be disconnected by their owners as so often happened with air bags is not yet known. No doubt the authorities will make it yet one more offence to add to the ever burgeoning catalogue. The beginning of an era where the government would be able to keep track of your movements whenever it wishes must have Orwell spinning in his grave, seeing that much of what he envisaged is finally coming to pass. Big Brother though has been replaced by a lot of Little Brothers. The Civil Liberties people have barely got into the act yet but there will no doubt be a fight along the lines of the one which the car manufacturers fought for years against seat belts. Let's reduce social confusion Returning to the When getting on the bus the student will place his or her finger into the reader and the system will identify who the student is. There will be a greeting message displayed on the screen, along with the name of the school and if needed a photo of the student. If the student does not belong on that bus the driver will have to authorize the ride and enter the change of route in the student's record. If the student is not in the data base the driver will again have to authorize the ride and enter the name, school, ID, e The same procedure will be followed at the end of the school day. Reports can be generated to show which students took the bus in the morning but did not take the bus in the afternoon. The school's main database can be updated over a phone line by modem. As usual, the system will be accessible only by authorized personnel via a password assigned on the basis of security level. Those who believe that all this information once gathered will remain unused by the government and its police enforcers should seek professional advice. This is simply one more example of the continuing attempt to collect either fingerprints or DNA samples from the whole population. By starting at the school level they will have constructed a national database within a generation or so. Not too surprising either is the fact that the anagram for the word fingerprints is serf printing. Quite so. The 1946 Foreword to Huxley's Brave New World makes prophetic reading. He wrote,
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