A superb column from Ben Goldacre here. Go and read it all. He\’s got more details of how, for example, to make your own fingerprint (or rather, someone else\’s) here.
Quite apart from the whole civil liberties part of the database and so on, it\’s clear that it simply won\’t actually work.
In fact you might sense that the whole field of biometrics and ID is rather like medical quackery: as usual, on the one hand we have snake oil salesmen promising the earth, and on the other a bunch of humanities graduates who don’t understand technology, science or even human behaviour. Buying it. Bigging it up. Thinking it’s a magic wand.
Pretty much what I said to Bob B not days ago. Made no difference then, and won’t today either. You see, such vague things like “Science” and “Technology” are up against so much more compelling concepts like “Convenience In Picking Up A Parcel From The Post Office” and “We Had These In World War 2 And Won That War”.
Thos Goldacre chap’s column in the Nurdgaia must be rather like a Bantustan.
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