Abstract
Biometric technology is woven into our daily lives in numerous forms that include, among others: digital fingerprint databases, iris scanners, and cameras placed in billboards for the purpose of identifying advertising targets. Developed with a concern for access control (such as to banks and high-security workplaces), the technologies are regarded as improvements to older methods of identification such as photographs and analog fingerprints. In When Biometrics Fail, Shoshana Amielle Magnet uses archival methods to examine the consequences of our widespread use of the technology and most significantly, she problematizes the way in which it has grown to be revered as a fail-safe answer to problems of identification and security.
In contrast to what one might assume from both the deployment of the technology and popular references to it, Magnet argues that it is not possible for this technology to accomplish what we expect of it. Her focus on the fallibility of the technology to identify individuals accurately is the first contribution of the book. Specifically, she demonstrates that it is likely to fail for certain types of bodies. A temporary hoarse voice can challenge the software, and some devices have been found to be less accurate on those with darker skin. The programs’ reliance on understandings of gender categories based on phenotypes that are not necessarily represented as expected in individuals, such as hair length and clothing, also causes errors of identification.
Magnet points to these (patterned) instances in which the technology makes mistakes translating bodies into codes of digital data as she argues that the trouble with relying on biometrics exists in the very goal of this translation. She draws heavily on Donna Haraway’s concept of corporeal fetishism in arguing the dangers of attempting to transform bodies into things. Doing so, she posits, not only ignores the complexity of the human body, as is evident in identification failures, but has significant consequences for social inequalities. Three of the book’s five topical chapters address these issues of inequality via case studies of biometrics in prisons, the welfare system, and for national security.
Prisons are presented as a natural extension of the use of the technology for concerns with security and, a theme that runs through each case study, an opportunity for capitalist growth. Much of Magnet’s discussion of this topic revolves around the ways in which people with certain marginalized identities are made targets of the technology. Reviewing data on who is likely to be incarcerated, she argues that people of color, women, queer people, and those with disabilities are more likely to be inventoried. This is the first of Magnet’s three examples of the ways in which marginalized communities provide data for biometric companies and are put at risk of being controlled by the technology.
The case of monitoring welfare recipients is an exceptional example of the effects of employing biometrics, as well as the intersection of identities and social power. Not only does it target a vulnerable population, but individuals are denied basic needs if they do not participate. Those in favor of requiring welfare recipients to be biometrically identified argued that it would save states money by deterring fraudulent duplicate applications. Magnet nicely outlines how this is only one particular and relatively rare type of fraud, and that the cost to states (in the tens of millions per year) more than overshadows any savings resulting from decreased fraud. Significantly, providers of services (e.g., doctors and landlords) commit a greater percentage of welfare fraud. Lawmakers in one state considered monitoring the providers, but the proposal was rejected, making clear that some groups of people are more able to avoid a criminal classification than others. The power of this example is further evident in consequences of the logistics of managing the technology. Because it could be cumbersome to transport the fingerprint machines to off-site locations, outreach efforts decreased, as did the number of people aided by the programs. In all, this case provides a convincing analysis of the social consequences of deploying the technology.
Magnet’s final case study reviews biometrics as prominent features of post-9/11 U.S./Canadian border agreements. Like the accessible prison population and government-funded welfare programs, government contracts for national security after 9/11 provided an enormous market and opportunity for companies to demonstrate how biometric technology can protect us from security threats. As Canadians come to be envisioned differently—potentially polluting rather than benign—their bodies are revisualized. The promise of the objectivity of biometrics is purported to provide a translation of these bodies that can easily be identified as “us” or “them.” The strength of this example is how it demonstrates the role the technology, by constructing bodies as clean, stable, and identifiable, plays in defining the border, not just maintaining it.
When Biometrics Fail concludes that the technologies have served as a politically successful policy failure: they do not work, and they harm certain individuals, but they succeed politically because they appear to keep us safe. Magnet’s theoretical reliance on corporeal fetishism while attending to failures, leads her to significant conclusions: first, the technology falsely imagines bodies as stable entities, and second, it intensifies inequalities. Of particular interest to sociologists is her focus, especially in the welfare chapter, on the human costs of the technologies. The analysis of the technology, its uses, and its failures inform us about the cultural context in which they were developed and are believed to be productive solutions. Our reliance on them to identify (and profit from) particular bodies—prisoners, welfare recipients, and security threats—is central to this argument.
Overall, the book is well organized and the archival material clearly presented. The introduction sets up the interesting question of how biometric technology codifies inequality, and subsequent chapters provide a convincing argument. Most helpful within chapters were the “significance” sections that contextualized the archival findings. Sections are often brief, though, and could be expanded. For instance, it would have been informative to have an analysis of the sources themselves: Where does most information on the topic come from? Who are the authorities? What do these answers tell us about how we understand biometrics and make decisions about employing them? Though not for the purpose of methodological reflection, the chapter on depictions of biometrics in fiction and news taps the dynamic between public information and product development, providing some information on the flow of ideas. Sections of the book would be well-received in courses in criminology, social policy, and immigration. Additionally, details of the development and use of the technologies, outlined clearly in the appendix and referenced in the text, will be of interest to social scholars of science and technology.