SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—State governments are seeking to regulate biometric IDs as concerns over privacy continue to be raised.
Third Certainty reported that as use of biometrics identifiers becomes more commonplace, privacy concerns have become greater—and now the legal ramifications are getting more complicated, the news source stated.
Washington State last month passed House Bill 1493, pioneering legislation forbidding businesses from obtaining or selling biometric information without the consent of the individual—legislation aimed at concerns about the use of biometric identifiers to commit identity fraud.
Third Certainty noted that companies moving to use biometric identifiers should be careful in how they collect and protect that data.
“It’s no longer that unusual for online services to request data referring to your physical traits in lieu of just a username and password. And government agencies are increasingly using biometric identifying technologies to keep places, like airports, secure,” said Robert Capps, vice president of business development at NuData, during an interview with Third Certainty.
“They’ll use facial recognition, gait analysis—how you walk,” Capps said. “These data points are also used in places like casinos looking for cheats and criminals walking into those facilities. So, anywhere there’s a place where you want to truly know who that human is, you’re starting to see some biometric verifications.”
Capp said the new law passed by Washington state legislators imposes strict criteria for the sale, lease or disclosure of biometric identifiers for commercial use. One benchmark: The bill makes putting biometric identifiers into a database illegal without the person’s consent—meaning such information cannot be collected “surreptitiously,” Capp explained.
“By contrast, other jurisdictions are discussing the possibility of actually requiring an iris scan or fingerprint or facial recognition reader for certain high-value transactions in order to mitigate identity fraud,” Capps said. “Everybody has a different approach to it. Some people are pushing to require biometrics online and other people are saying, ‘Oh, we’ve got to be careful here because physical biometrics can’t be changed, so putting more detailed data out to those databases to be stolen is a really questionable proposition.”