Biometric security denotes the recognizing of humans on the basis of intrinsic physical or behavioural traits.  Biometric systems differ from more traditional forms of security by identifying the body alongside knowledge or possession tokens, such as passwords or documents. The common recognition characteristics are the face, fingerprint or iris.  However, there are ongoing developments in vascular pattern recognition, hand geometry, DNA and even body odour. Behavioural biometrics encompasses handwriting, voice and keystroke patterns, together with growing fields such as gait recognition.  Since the late 1990s there has been a revolution in biometrics for primary security access and, in some cases, as replacement technologies.

Many people regard biometrics as evidence of increasing 'Big Brother' surveillance. However, my anthropological concern is to explore the cultural worlds in which security thinking and new technologies are embedded, and I am interested in how security technologies may transform people's lives.

Biometric identification became a particular scientific and governmental issue in the nineteenth century as a consequence of colonial expansion and the rise of modern cities. Colonial officials sought to use biometrics to root out fake pensioners, faked deaths, prisoners-for-hire serving a sentence handed down to one individual, and, more generally, to control a huge, seemingly undifferentiated populations. In cities such as Paris, London and San Francisco biometrics were used to identify all sorts of mobile populations, but especially the much-feared habitual criminal-the recidivist. Recidivists were conceived of as degenerates, members of the most mobile strata of the dangerous poor, people capable of appearing, disappearing and changing appearance; they were described by Parisian prosecutor Charles Bertheau as, 'habitués and prison scum, mangy black sheep that threaten the whole heard with contagion'.

My work has slowly been developing into a multi-sited project tracking developments in Europe (especially Ireland), North America and the Middle East.

For a recent scholarly article by Mark on this topic see:

Mark Maguire. (2009). 'The Birth of Biometric Security'. Anthropology Today, vol. 25, no. 2 (April): 9-14.

Or you can listen to Mark discussion biometric security with the BBC's Laurie Taylor on Thinking Allowed:

Mark Maguire. (2009). 'The Origins of Biometric Security'. Thinking Allowed with Laurie Taylor, BBC Radio 4, 15 April [10 minutes].
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jn4f8

Mark Maguire is a Social-Cultural Anthropologist working on anthropological approaches to emergent technologies of mobility control.  His early work is on violence, nationalism and memory in Ireland. More recently, he shifted towards the anthropological interface with Migration Studies. His doctoral research and book, Differently Irish, looked at Vietnamese programme refugees and is concerned with notions of belonging, 'integration' and trans-nationalism. This line of research continues into questions related to asylum and integration, especially in the IRCHSS-funded project 'After Asylum'.