- Home >
- Services >
- Access to Knowledge >
- Trend Monitor >
- Domain of Application >
- Trend snippet: Future trends and developments in the field of biometric techniques
Trends in Security Information
The HSD Trendmonitor is designed to provide access to relevant content on various subjects in the safety and security domain, to identify relevant developments and to connect knowledge and organisations. The safety and security domain encompasses a vast number of subjects. Four relevant taxonomies (type of threat or opportunity, victim, source of threat and domain of application) have been constructed in order to visualize all of these subjects. The taxonomies and related category descriptions have been carefully composed according to other taxonomies, European and international standards and our own expertise.
In order to identify safety and security related trends, relevant reports and HSD news articles are continuously scanned, analysed and classified by hand according to the four taxonomies. This results in a wide array of observations, which we call ‘Trend Snippets’. Multiple Trend Snippets combined can provide insights into safety and security trends. The size of the circles shows the relative weight of the topic, the filters can be used to further select the most relevant content for you. If you have an addition, question or remark, drop us a line at info@securitydelta.nl.
visible on larger screens only
Please expand your browser window.
Or enjoy this interactive application on your desktop or laptop.
Future trends and developments in the field of biometric techniques
Latest technological advances include improved sensors, enabling the capture of entirely new types of bio-signals.
On the one hand, the private sector has developed an increased interest in the large-scale use of advanced biometric applications that had previously only been used by law enforcement. In addition, biometric authentication technologies are to an increasing extent included in IoT devices and digital services, replacing the traditional use of passwords or similar credentials. Similar to the evolution of fingerprint technology in smartphones, new biometric techniques could lead to a diversification of options of mobile authentication.
On the other hand, the public sector is increasingly relying on biometric techniques in various fields such as law enforcement and border security, health care or even for warfare. The overarching global trends of hyper-individualisation, enhanced security concerns and seamlessness of digital services continue to be strong drivers for further advancing biometric technologies.
The following Subchapters shall give an overview of trends and developments in the field of biometric techniques that have caused broader public concerns.
‘Smart’ borders
Increasing their border security by using modern technologies, such as AI and biometric techniques, has been a fixed item on the political agenda of the EU and its Member States. In 2017, the EU adopted a Regulation to establish an ‘Entry/Exit System’ (EES), which records and stores date, time, place of entry and exit as well as biometric data of third-country nationals. Under the obligations of the Regulation Member States have to implement systems that can quickly register and verify the identity of external visitors by collecting and processing fingerprints and facial biometrics.
However, ‘smart’ borders may not only encompass the use of biometric technologies for identification purposes but can also include emotion detection systems. These automated deception detection tools analyse second generation biometrics that are associated with stress, anxiety and lying to support border control officers. Although no emotion detection systems are currently in operation at EU borders, the ‘Intelligent Portable Control System’ (iBorderCtrl) project, which was aimed at the development of deception detection tools and risk based assessment tools for border security purposes, has received significant research funding under the Horizon 2020 scheme.
The use of these biometric deception detection systems is highly contested, as they are not based on sound science but rather on a chain of assumptions about the relationship between biometric indicators and internal intentions. There are several studies that have pointed out the flaws of these assumptions and that automated deception detection tools do not yield more accurate results than mere guessing. One of the fundamental issues of these systems is that emotions are complex human phenomena that cannot be clearly assigned to a set of nonverbal and verbal indicators.
Health care
In the health care sector, biometric techniques are increasingly used to reliably identify patients. The intention is to reduce registration times and reduce social security fraud. Furthermore, it allows the identification and retrieval of medical records of unconscious or unresponsive emergency patients. There are also more ambitious approaches, such as linking biometric authentication to drug prescriptions for specific contagious diseases in order to monitor epidemiological developments in real time.
However, biometric techniques and AI are also used for more controversial medical purposes. In a recent US experiment, social media photos were analysed, using algorithmic facial recognition, metadata components and colour analysis to identify predictive markers of depression
Autonomous weapon systems
The use of AI for military purposes has given rise to ethical, legal and policy discussion on its own. The risks of automated decision making and a missing human in loop become particularly apparent in this context, as consequences will often be immediate, severe and irreversible. While biometric techniques play a subordinate role in autonomous weaponry, their use gained public attention when a UN report emerged documenting the use of automated drones in Libya that were programmed to attack even if connection to the operator was lost. This suggests that the drones were equipped with some sort of facial recognition software. However, the UN Report does not unequivocally confirm the use of biometric techniques nor that the attack was indeed flown without human intervention. Irrespective of what had actually transpired in Libya, it is clear that autonomous decisions in modern warfare could be based on biometric techniques. The need for human control in AI used for military purposes has also recently been stressed by a Resolution of the European Parliament. The EP recommends that no authority shall certify AI-based systems intended for military purposes that are not subject to meaningful human control, so that at all times a human has the means to correct, halt or disable it in the event of unforeseen behaviour, accidental intervention, cyber-attacks or interference by third parties.