The birth of biometric security

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2265197
AutoresMark Maguire (0000-0003-2704-5359, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen25
Número2
Páginas9-14
Fecha de publicación2009-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnthropology Today (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0268-540X • E-ISSN: 1467-8322
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-8322.2009.00654.x
OpenAlexW2056981813
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas37
Referencias citadas8

We are currently witnessing a rapid rise in biometric security. Borders are apparently becoming 'smart'; passports are becoming e-passports, and when you set out on your travels your data double is already at your destination. Access to airports and even continents will increasingly be determined not by your national citizenship but by the security of your identity. Biometric security has received little anthropological attention despite historical associations with the discipline. Here I wish to outline a brief genealogy of biometric security in order to argue that, beyond the apparent newness of the technology, key biometric technologies owe their origins to 19th-entury deployments and then as now they may be understood as a form of bio-governmentality in which the security of identity opens possibilities for population control

Aesthetics · Biometric data · Biometrics · Citizenship · Computer security · Internet privacy · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Computer Science · Historical and Scientific Studies · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Race, Genetics, and Society