How technology tramples on freedom

[Commentary] Rapid advances in biometric technology mean the public is surveilled – and their movements recorded – more than ever before. If this technology spreads without limits, it could soon impinge on basic rights.

There is more discussion to be had on the scope, scale, and implications of "biometrics," yet for the moment we will close with the logical truth that no people, no society need rules against behaviors that are impossible, but the ballistic trajectory of biometric capabilities is such that constructing prohibitory rules before something is possible has become wholly essential. Probabilistically, enumerating forbidden things must fail to anticipate some dangers hence the policy tradeoff is whether to nevertheless attempt that enumeration or to switch over to enumerating permitted things. A free society being one where "that which is not forbidden is permitted" and an unfree society being one where "that which is not permitted is forbidden," whether we can retain a free society by enumerating forbidden aspects (of biometrics) is now at question.

[Dan Geer is the chief information security officer for In-Q-Tel, a not-for-profit investment firm that works to invest in technology that supports the missions of the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US intelligence community.]