The Paradox of Identity.
The power of biometrics in finding individuality amongst human uniformity
There are about 45,000 people named John Smith in the United States. Chances are a handful of them have the same birthday and even live in the same state. And there are likely about 5,000 people in Egypt alone named Mohammed Abdullah. In addition to these appellative biographic similarities, genetic research tells us that compared to the person next to us, our DNA is 99.9% the same.
This similarity is something to celebrate this and motivate us to respect all life and our fellow man. But more fascinating is our individual diversity amongst this uniformity. Each of those John Smiths and Mohammed Abdullahs was uniquely created — as were you. Some characteristics of this individuality can be seen in our distinctive biometric features.
Like snowflakes, from our fingerprints to the irises of our eyes, no two are identically alike. There is a paradox of identities that are both extremely collective and extremely individualistic.
As a national security expert who has overseen policy development for issues including identity management, watchlisting, credentialing, and biometrics, I support efforts to bring risk down to the individual level. As a private citizen, I recognize the value that comes from greater trust and confidence in identity verification and validation when applied to reducing fraud and increasing efficiency of our commercial and civic transactions. As a freedom-loving American, I cherish our individual liberty, and support concepts like individual responsibility, and I shun broad brush stereotypes and monolithic concepts of collective guilt or collective salvation.
However, at times, I do recognize that it may not be feasible or expedient to view things from the individual perspective. For example, as biological surveillance was observing a novel Coronavirus emanating from Wuhan Province in China in early 2020, American public health experts realized it was prudent, and not xenophobic, for the White House to proactively impose last January broad, country-based travel restrictions to buy time to enable further research on the virus and slow the burden on the American hospital infrastructure.
The lack of transparency from the Chinese government and lack of scale-able information at the individual traveler level, required risk to be mitigated at the collective-group level. As the science on the virus evolved and wide-spread testing was developed, the trajectory was a movement towards a paradigm of screening and vetting at the individual risk level through international pre-departure COVID-19 testing. And likely, the next phase will be based on verifying individual vaccine inoculation.
While biometrics, such as fingerprints or facial recognition scans, are not relevant in screening for infectious diseases, the trend toward individual, vice collective, risk is a movement in the positive direction. In addition to the screening and vetting benefits that reduce the risk of fraud, public health experts have also noted the positive role that biometrics can further play in the post-COVID era travel sector by reducing direct contact and reducing physical document exchange.
As a former Wall Street securities trader, I instinctively think of risk-reward models. Irrespective of the scenario, we likely cannot entirely remove the risk that an individual or group poses; furthermore, it is important to have a cost-benefit mindset and balance a variety of factors. For example, as witnessed during the current debate in many municipalities surrounding reopening in-person primary and elementary education, other factors, such as virtual learning’s impact on mental health, education quality, and social development, should have been weighed with the relatively low risk of COVID-19 complications among youth.
What we should continue to do in a variety of sectors is keep harnessing the power of biometrics in a responsible manner.
Biometrics can be utilized in a way that respects privacy and civil liberties as well as increases the trust, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of immigration, travel, commerce, financial transactions, and other facets of life in which it is important to ensure that you are who you say you are, even if there happens to be scores of others with your same name.
The author, Alex Zemek, is a former government official, securities trader, and a national security expert.