Biometric Imaginaries: The Body in the Cloud?

• In Event: The Biometric Body as Public Good? Questions of Legitimacy & Valuation in Human Identification

Abstract

This paper explores issues associated with policymaking regarding biometric technologies. In addition to being used in criminal justice, biometric systems are increasingly being considered for surveillance purposes to monitor seemingly risky actors. Biometric technologies can be conceptualized as being co-produced with policy imaginaries about what constitute desirable futures for society, which may be differentially contextualized within specific jurisdictions. The co-production of biometrics and policy imaginaries—what we call biometric imaginaries—necessitates concerted critical analysis. Recent discourses have drawn attention to the challenges of biometric policymaking, which this paper addresses via examples drawn from a range of jurisdictions including those of the UK. By comparing the experience of biometric policymaking in England and Wales with other jurisdictions, this paper examines how biometric systems are discursively mobilized within and across specific policy contexts. In doing so this paper seeks to identify the processes and dynamics through which biometric imaginaries are constructed, which encompasses: a) how stakeholders envisage and evaluate the practical, moral and political challenges they associate with the application of biometric systems; b) the contextualizing role of policy priorities pertaining to certain jurisdictions in shaping those valuations; and c) how possible differences between the imaginaries and practicalities of biometrics are addressed.

Authors

• Christopher James Lawless, Durham University

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