Recombinant Identities: Biometrics and Narrative Bioethics

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in finding stronger means of securitising identity against the various risks presented by the mobile globalised world. Biometric technology has featured quite prominently on the policy and security agenda of many countries. It is being promoted as the solution du jour for protecting and managing the uniqueness of identity in order to combat identity theft and fraud, crime and terrorism, illegal work and employment, and to efficiently govern various domains and services including asylum, immigration and social welfare.In this paper, I shall interrogate the ways in which biometrics is about the uniqueness of identity and what kind of identity biometrics is concerned with. I argue that in posing such questions at the outset, we can start delimiting the distinctive bioethical stakes of biometrics beyond the all-toofamiliar concerns of privacy, data protection and the like. I take cue mostly from Cavarero's Arendt-inspired distinction between the "what" and the "who" elements of a person, and from Ricoeur's distinction between the "idem" and "ipse" versions of identity. By engaging with these philosophical distinctions and concepts, and with particular reference to the example of asylum policy, I seek to examine and emphasise an important ethical issue pertaining to the practice of biometric identification. This issue relates mainly to the paradigmatic shift from the biographical story (which for so long has been the means by which an asylum application is assessed) to biodigital samples (that are now the basis for managing and controlling the identities of asylum applicants). The purging of identity from its narrative dimension lies at the core of biometric technology's overzealous aspiration to accuracy, precision and objectivity, and raises one of the most pressing bioethical questions vis-à-vis the realm of identification.

Blockchain for good?

“…One critical factor in enabling greater financial inclusion is identity, which, it is argued (Birch, ), will underpin future digital transactions and lies at the heart of realizing the potential of DLT. The question of what defines identity is challenging, not least because it “does not lend itself easily to definition nor does it remain unchangeable” (Ajana, , p. 5). Identities are made up of multiple attributes: date and place of birth, parents’ names, school, criminal record, employment record, biometrics, papers published, and so on.…”

Ethics and border control technologies

“…a fingerprint, facial image or retinal scan). 43 Neutrality of technology: Per se, technology is neutral, that is, it is neither beneficial nor harmful: it depends on the use that is made of it to achieve a certain goal. An example is Live Facial Recognition (LFR) 44 deployed by some national law enforcement authorities, such as the London Metropolitan Police (UK), the police in Hamburg and Berlin (Germany) and in Nice (France).…”

Digital health and the biopolitics of the Quantified Self

“…For instance, as I argue elsewhere, the deployment of biometric identification techniques in various fields, such as security and border control, has also redefined the relationship between body and identity. By laying claim to the idea that identity can ‘objectively’ be determined through the body, 33 biometrics has given the body unprecedented significance over the mind, casting it as a source of ‘instant truth’. 34 This is encapsulated in the expression ‘the body does not lie’, an expression that became the marketing slogan of the biometrics industry.…”