Algorithm say this. The big stories generate thousands of headlines it seems that much the media is still struggling with how to deal with it with different angles from different perspectives and you hold to account separating the spin from the facts. The misinformation from the journalism how careful must be your words but some tough stuff has to be said for some critics have to be made the listening post on aljazeera. I can unlock my phone with my face you can access your bank account with your voice and fingerprints are often the Key Information on a national id card all of this face voice fingerprints there are biometrics unique algorithmic measurements of us that are revolutionizing the process of identification but biometrics are far from perfect they convenience and seeming infallibility comes at a price most crucially our privacy. Well biometrics are individual unique so much so that theyve always served as a Gold Standard for identification with really high levels of accuracy and Strong Security fingerprints and d. N. A. Databases have been the mainstay for Police Investigators for decades and across many parts of the world people who are literally used thumbprints in place of written signature stephanie is has been researching the growing use of biometrics theres also your face now which is being recorded so thats just your facial point thats called facial Recognition Technology your voice is biometric data theres also something called gait analysis which is how you walk so those are ways that they can identify you and another way is behavioral biometrics that might be your online behavior though their mouth where you click on things as you go through the internet but even how regular they are posting on facebook theres a lot but you can can get just from people ordinary life and thats why its so important to have this debate and in fighting if we all are giving our consent about whether or not we want to. And if so under what circumstances and what regulatory checks. The world is on a mission a mission to give everybody a legal identity by 2030 that was a target set by the United Nations as part of that Sustainable DevelopmentGoals Campaign the key segment of the population that the u. N. Is focusing on is the more than 1000000000 people who currently have no way to prove their identity. The un verified include millions of refugees traffic children homeless and other people who never get a chance to establish documents and create a digital footprint thats so essential for modern life. Here exactly can the United NationsWorld Food Program is using Biometric Technology iris scans to provide age to the camps 75. 1000 syrian residents refugees can shop for their groceries with the blink of an eye no need for bank card or registration papers the system is quite aptly named. When a shopper has their iris scanned the World Food Program system verifies the persons identity against a biometric database held by the Un High Commission for refugees the u. N. H. C. R. Then it checks the account balance confirms the purchase and prints and i pay receipt. All of this happens in seconds and according to the World Food Program this not only makes transactions quicker the more secure here in jordan we use by your metrics out indication for human reason 1. 100 percent accountability on the identity of the person could chasing and using the assistance that we provide and 2nd me to facilitate that attention process of the beneficiaries by not using the card by not using the pin in camps which is an environment where beneficially can to go to the supermarket to move people times during the month for them going with their on iraqis its easier been going with a car but it can. Be. Done by. Watching the iris enable shopping process is both fascinating and a bit and. This is a super high tech system thats been rolled out in what you could call a low rights environment sure people here are under the protection of the United Nations and have more rights than they would have in the war zones of the countries they fled from such as syria however they also have little choice when it comes to giving up their biometrics erupting biometrics programs taking somebodys biometric data from them is about the most personal data that you could take these are not people who necessarily are in a position to ask for legal representation to have this explained to them 2nd if they dont want it what is the alternative that they can exercise instead are they using behavioral psychology as something. Nudge the area to make it where its just easier to hand over your data and then you get your food and your clothes and your money faster because that would be unethical were testing out to get an extremely experimental really Invasive Technology on people who potentially have some of the right protections that anyone with a middle class person living in france or germany or the United States or sweden can fence. To use their iris to pay for things or to transact probably not its easy to see the immense potential of the idea to track a dispersement smooth out payments and reduce the chances of corruption from the World Food Program says the benefits go even further they are able to monitor Shopping Habits and traditional take and theres a possibility in the future that the Credit Histories of the refugees could help them Bank Accounts get lines they also think theyve got the security bit covered. So the reprieve regulates the management of theyve got to produce through its got to show theyre going to remember we can its. So crude that agreement we are able to access the beta Sensitive Data which again does not include me just the case i did for a number of occasions so we are confident in that but the being good is. What public the reason why we are doing. That i really do the privacy and in fact assessment on the project to get on t. V. That if that had nukes but. In the world were able to talk of them and address them cope with me before they come to us. U. N. H. C. R. Remain fully committed to their Biometrics Registration Program so much so that theyre rapidly expanding it with the aim of be active in 75 countries by 2020 there remains lots of problematic questions that are yet to be fully answered such as is the tech foolproof who has access and how can anyone plan for the unforeseen issues to come these are the kinds of questions that have made other aid organizations pause before jumping on board with Biometric Technology in 2015 oxfam voluntarily imposed a moratorium on its use of by metrics in its work its stated given the number of unknowns around most effective operation and governance models and risks of this incredibly Sensitive Data fooling into the wrong hands we felt it was best not to become an early adopter. One field in which biometrics has long been is security and surveillance and facial recognition is one of the most popular right now in china theres been an exponential increase in the use of facial tracking and Artificial Intelligence to monitor to citizens the United States also currently operates one of the largest facial Recognition Systems in the world with a database of 117000000 americans with photos typically drawn from drivers licenses and in the u. K. Police forces have been trialing life issue recognition since 2016 a public spaces such as Shopping Centers football matches protest music events and crowded city spots so this green band thats behind me here in Central London is part of the facial Recognition Technology trial thats being run by the metropolitan police and what its doing is its basically scanning peoples faces when they walk past and then comparing that to a database that has want to defendants all suspects something the met police say facial recognition could enable them to more easily protect people. Prevent offenses and bring offenders to justice however privacy groups such as big brother watch say the technology is authoritarian and lawless the groups legal and policy officer or a ferris even goes so far as to say that facial recognition is possibly the most dangerous surveillance mechanism thats ever been invented this facial Recognition Technology can capture up to 300 cases a seconds which could be around 18000 faces in a minute its a vast vast number of people whom the police can identify check against Police Databases for that police or immigration so what were seeing is police i dont being able to identify people in seconds but put so much power in the hands of the state and the police which i think is fundamentally wrong its not democratically accountable because theres no legal basis for this so this is an intense intrusive and all thora terror and Surveillance Technology while advocates for facial recognition would debate some of course assertions one thing is undeniable the technology currently being used by the u. K. Police is dangerously inaccurate latest figures show that 96 percent of the net police is socalled matches when misidentifications and this Research Showing that many facial recognition algorithms will disproportionately misidentify darker skin tones and when. The cause is a new murs and the very ranging from poor quality c. C. T. V. Images to the fact that the algorithms are trained so to speak using faces at a mostly white and male this technology and looks like a really nice quick fix to the fact that we have not got as much money to pay for human intelligence operations so it sounds great in theory the problem is if the work very well on people who are not white men which is quite a lot of the population on the planet being arrested wrongfully means that you get put into predictive policing algorithm so the more often youre having contact with Law Enforcement the more you are at risk of being stopped again even erroneous lee and also people in your network because they build the network out of number just about you proponents of facial recognition in the u. K. Will argue that issues with accuracy can be fixed they arent wrong technology can always be improved on whats a bigger concern is that currently there are no laws governing the use of facial technology in the country whether its the state using it or even private companies i think whats really troubling at the moment is the technology is being rolled out without legislation and empowered regulators this is not technology to have a very good track record of being accountable to can find out who is using it under what circumstances what weve done with the data stored whats the track record of cybersecurity on keeping that data protected all of the things we have no idea has just been rolled out when people feel that theyre being observed all the time that has a really Chilling Effect which to things like your right to protest your right to go to a Job Interview to hang out with some friends to go to church these are things that perhaps the state doesnt have a right to keep an eye on the met police have defended the trials saying theyre quote and that members of the public are 3 posters and leaflets but at the trial i was at that would be the word. There was literally how. People rushing through the space and the chances of seeing the tiny signs reading the leaflets or even understanding what the unmarked van was being useful when minimal i stopped a few people to see what they thought of the trial. Not the level of invasion of privacy but then we live in not wild in my opinion i think its a good thing to have facial recognition because i as long as youre not doing anything bad and it also helps the police track people down to be honest their technology is going up the moment this will be the norm all around the world so i think we just need to get used to it if youve done nothing wrong theres no issue i think if you really believe that the state has never done anything wrong to its citizens then you have nothing to fear from this technology but as we know no state has a perfect track record and we should not be putting so much power into the hands of the state on the police take a look around you in the world the technology is already being used by certain countries all you have to do is pick up a newspaper and see people who are being incarcerated in concentration camps in china right now biometrics data is part of that thats how theyre monitoring those people and tracking them and anyone who comes into contact with them right so theres your proof of concept of what could be done now its really easy to go that would never happen here but your government can always change right so history is full of examples but even in the old democracy if in times of war in times of economic difficulty people get voted into power who change so you have to think about how a 5th time is being built and what it could be used for years down the road when theres a very different political flavor. The u. K. Collects biometrics from another key segment of the population one that many wouldnt even consider children if youre aware that schools have been recording the biometrics of children for the past 20 years it is estimated that since 1909 approximately 70 to 80 percent of children in the u. K. Have interacted with some sort of biometric device in School Picking is a parent complain if a child writes and creator of the by metrix in school. I think companies are putting the tech into a School Setting because