The Biometric Body as Public Good? Questions of Legitimacy & Valuation in Human Identification

Abstract

The last decade has seen a rapid expansion of claims and possibilities offered for human identification via new biometric patterns and technologies, including in genetics and genomics, face and voice recognition and comparison, and remote sensing of body responses. In the social studies of science, technology and innovation, lively debates about associations between human features and social identity have emerged. More recently, technological capabilities and political desires have added questions around, both, automation of human identification technologies, and the expansion of biometric pattern use across very diverse societal domains. At the heart of these questions lie the insufficiently explored scientific, ethical and political complexities of biometric technologies, including a lack of knowledge about the social impact of applying new biometric data patterns, novel computing, and data distribution capacities, for forensic and surveillance purposes in security and justice contexts. This panel invites contributions exploring discourses and practices of legitimation and valuation in human identification practices in criminal investigation, migration and border regimes, disaster victim identification, and cognate fields. Contributions are invited to explore diverse substantial and methodological issues, e.g. how ethical regimes might align or conflict in emerging practices and attempts to govern collections of samples and data, and what STS can bring to the ‘policy room’ here. Overall, this panel attends to the empirical study of valuation—processes of imbuing value—and legitimacy in science and technology development and use, within the normative exploration of ‘bigger picture’ questions of being human and being social, towards developing value-informed policy and practice.

Individual Presentations

• Imaginaries of Security Innovations, (In)security Technologies and Criminalized Bodies: The Cases of Germany and Poland - Helena Machado, Communication and Society Research Centre (CECS) | University of Minho, Portugal; Nina Amelung, University of Minho

• Biometric Imaginaries: The Body in the Cloud? - Christopher James Lawless, Durham University; Matthias Wienroth, Policy, Ethics & Life Sciences Research Centre, Newcastle University

• Biometrics and the State: Can They Be Trusted? - Carole I McCartney, Northumbria University

Session Organizer

• Matthias Wienroth, Policy, Ethics & Life Sciences Research Centre, Newcastle University