Artificial noses that sniff explosives, cameras that I.D. you by your ears, chips that analyze the halo of heat you emit. More scrutiny lies ahead
Lost in the recent London bombings, along with innocent lives, was any illusion that today's surveillance technology can save us from evildoers. Britain has 4 million video cameras monitoring streets, parks, and government buildings, more than any other country. London alone has 500,000 cameras watching for signs of illicit activity. Studying camera footage helped link the July 7 bombings with four men — but only after the fact. The disaster drove home some painful reminders: Fanatics bent on suicide aren't fazed by cameras. And even if they are known terrorists, most video surveillance software won't pick them out anyway.
Tomorrow's surveillance technology may be considerably more effective. But each uptick in protection will typically come at the cost of more intrusion into the privacy of ordinary people. For now, the public seems to find that trade-off acceptable, so scientists around the world have intensified efforts to perfect the art of surveillance, hoping to catch villains before they strike.
Research laboratories envision tools that could identify and track just about every person, anywhere — and sound alarms when the systems encounter hazardous objects or chemical compounds. Many such ideas seem to leap from the pages of science fiction: An artificial nose in doorways and corridors sniffs out faint traces of explosives on someone's hair. Tiny sensors floating in reservoirs detect a deadly microbe and radio a warning. Smart cameras ID people at a distance by the way they walk or the shape of their ears. And a little chemical lab analyzes the sweat, body odor, and skin flakes in the human thermal plume — the halo of heat that surrounds each person.
All of these projects are on a fast track since September 11. Meanwhile, consumer demand is speeding their development by lowering the cost of the underlying technologies. Camera phones, nanny cams, and even satellite photos are commonplace. Biological sensors are flooding into households in the form of tests for HIV, pregnancy, and diabetes — some of which can relay data to a doctor — and soon there will be far more sensitive DNA-based tests. Next up are radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. They're showing up in stores to help track inventory, and 50 people in the U.S. have had them planted under their skin to broadcast their ID and medical data, in case of an emergency.
Together these developments herald a high-tech surveillance society that not even George Orwell could have imagined — one in which virtually every advance brings benefits as well as intrusions. Rapid DNA-based probes, for example, could help protect us from bioweapons and diagnose diseases, but they might also reveal far too much about us to health insurers or prospective employers. The trade-offs are uncomfortable, in part, because corporations and governments will continue to wield the most advanced surveillance systems. But ordinary citizens will also gain capabilities to monitor their surroundings with consumer technologies, from Web cams to Net search and tracking tools, allowing the watched to observe other watchers.
One great worry is that those who stand out from the norm or express unpopular views, minorities, the poor, or just the ill-mannered, may get stomped in new and surprising ways. A recent incident in South Korea shows how this can play out. A subway commuter posted on the Internet some cell-phone photos he took of a passenger who had refused to clean up after her dog relieved itself during the ride. In no time, a vigilante mob on the Web identified her by her face and the purse she was carrying, and she became the object of national vilification. "You can move into a surveillance society one tiny camera at a time," says Deirdre Mulligan, director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the University of California at Berkeley.
If terrorism becomes endemic in Europe and America, emerging surveillance tools may be abused in even more egregious ways. At the same time, the overhead burdens of a police state, from the dossier-building to the endless security checkpoints, could impose crippling costs on a free-market economy. Witness the U.S. clampdown on foreign student visas, which could end up crimping universities' ability to do advanced research. "We could bankrupt ourselves, much like the Soviet Union did," notes Kim Taipale, executive director of Manhattan's Center for Advanced Studies in Science & Technology Policy.
Experts disagree about when the most visionary tools to thwart terrorist acts will arrive on the market — and whether they will deliver on their promise. Sensors that can detect bombs, radiation, and toxins exist today, and will be far more sophisticated a decade from now. But strewing them across every city in America would cost untold billions of dollars. High-tech electronic eavesdropping on communications networks can be effective, but only if terrorists use telecom systems. And even with improvements in cameras, biometric devices such as iris scans, bomb sniffers, and tracking software, it will be years before they can pick a terrorist out of a crowd. In short, the march toward a surveillance society may be inevitable, but no simple cost-benefit equation can assure us that the sacrifices will be worth it. We'll be debating the point for decades to come.
Gin or Tequila? In the quest to sort bad guys from good, scientists are poking ever more intimately at the core of each person's identity — right down to the DNA. One day people's distinctive body odor, breath, or saliva could serve as an identifier, based on the subtle composite of chemicals that make up a person's scent or spit. One's smell "is a cocktail of hundreds of molecules," says Frank V. Bright, a chemistry professor at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. "The question is whether it's a gin and tonic or a margarita." While some of these sensors perform well in the lab, he adds, the real world may be different: "The technology is still in its infancy."
Science today is hard put to identify smells a beagle could nail in an instant. "We want to show there is a set of underlying odors in people independent of perfume and what they ate that day," says Gary K. Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center at the University of Pennsylvania, a pioneer of odor prints. But for Beauchamp, Bright, and others, surveillance is just one objective. The more immediate goal is to use their biochemical understanding of human odor to diagnose diseases. Specific chemicals are associated with certain illnesses — carbon disulfide with some forms of mental illness, for instance, and nitric oxide with cancer.
Messengers in your Mouth In Bright's lab at the University at Buffalo, scientists are creating super-sensors to pick up myriad molecules released at low concentrations that constitute human scents, including carbon dioxide, acetone, ethanol, and sulfur. To capture them, they poke tiny pores into glass — as many as 10,000 on a chip the width of a pencil eraser — each tailored to the size of the molecule. Excited by a laser, the chemicals trapped in the pores emit different colors, and computers can then analyze the resulting pattern.
Dental researchers are attacking the challenges of identification and diagnosis from another vantage point — the mouth. They're studying whether saliva contains markers for various diseases. If the technology works, it has additional potential for biometric applications, too. Spit contains many of the proteins, nucleic acids, and other substances that are found in blood. While they are present in fainter quantities, they can also be sampled less intrusively.
Scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles have found that they can detect in human saliva some 3,000 messenger RNAs, molecules that carry genetic information within a human cell. These molecules perhaps can serve as markers for disease, or perhaps for identity, just like DNA. And they are often easier to detect. About 180 RNA markers are common across all individuals, but the remainder can differ. "We don't know how constant these are to the individual on a Monday vs. a Friday, but they could possibly serve as fingerprints for that individual," says David T. Wong, associate dean of research at the UCLA School of Dentistry. Last December his team identified four RNA markers in saliva that may indicate the presence of oral cancer.
The use of bodily scents and secretions as biometrics presents an intriguing anti-terrorism weapon. But if the science isn't rock-solid, it can lead to a nightmare of mistaken identities. That's a problem even with mature biometrics, such as fingerprints. The fingerprints of Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield were erroneously matched to those of a suspect in the Madrid train bombing last year. This cast a cloud over the innocent man for weeks.
Biometrics bring a host of other troubles. As they become used more and more in office access, ATM passwords, passports, and ID cards, their value increases, and so do efforts to steal or spoof them. And because biometrics are cloaked in science, matches may acquire an unearned aura of dependability. Recently, cryptographers in Japan showed that common fingerprint-based systems can be easily duped using simple molds of melted Gummi Bear candies. In hopes of precluding such scams, Albuquerque's Lumidigm Inc. captures images of not only the fingerprint itself but also the terrain beneath the skin. This includes the swirling patterns of active capillaries, which help indicate that the finger is alive. Fujitsu Ltd. has just installed palm scanners that read vein patterns at Mitsubishi bank ATMs.
Despite the many failings of biometrics, the federal government is encouraging scientists to fashion them into covert surveillance tools. Face recognition — the most obvious way to track people because it's how humans do it — is still dogged by problems matching images that may be distorted by a smile or ill-placed shadow. While scientists work out those glitches, others are improving iris-based technology for surveillance at a distance. Though computers can easily find eyes on a face, today's systems can't scan irises from afar as people rush through a crowd. Sarnoff Corp., a contract research outfit in Princeton, N.J., hopes to unveil a solution to that later this year.
Another hope is that certain characteristic movements may be recognizable at a distance. Taking a page from Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research body credited with inventing the Internet, funds work on software that could identify individuals by their strides. Researchers measure the silhouette of the torso, the swinging of the shoulders and legs, and the time it takes to move through a single step, says Mark Nixon, a professor in computer vision at Britain's University of Southampton. Right now, people can still trick the system by wearing Manolo Blahniks, but there may be signature rhythms that are harder to disguise. Such "gait recognition" systems may be 5 to 10 five years from commercialization.
Many people in building security welcome advances in surveillance. In New York, two-thirds of Class A residential and commercial buildings use some combination of biometrics and surveillance for access control or checking time and attendance, says Robert Tucker, CEO of security consulting firm T&M Protection Resources. Incidents of mistaken identity are rare, he says. Biometrics can also vindicate an innocent person by establishing a correct ID, notes Raul J. Fernandez, CEO of Object Video Inc., which makes software for intelligent camera surveillance: "Highly accurate technology is a friend to privacy."
The most serious privacy breaches are almost all linked to the proliferation of fast and inexpensive data processing and storage systems. The worst problems arise when each bit of information an individual gives up over the course of a day — from the E-ZPass scans on the morning commute to the credit card purchase at Starbucks (SBUX ) to the logging of PC keystrokes at work — get tied across various databases to create a detailed dossier of an innocent Joe's daily activity. "We're a couple generations away from the technology that makes it possible for a computer to save everything you do," says Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security Inc.
But in info tech, the generations can fly by at superhuman speeds. Ever since September 11, the U.S. government has been striving through the power of software to extend its investigatory net over an elusive enemy lurking among the populace. The idea is to rifle through multiple databases using algorithms that categorize and rank documents — ranging from airline manifests, car rental records, and hotel guest lists to credit, court, and housing records compiled and sold by private companies such as ChoicePoint. In this way, machines might recognize relationships among human beings that humans themselves can miss.
This is just one of many measures that trigger a Big Brother alert. One of the hot buttons is eavesdropping. An emerging wireless technology called software-defined radio has the power to make cellular phones compatible with any network standard, but also opens new frontiers of snooping. The commercial merits of the technology are self-evident: Say good-bye to dead zones and lack of interoperability between police and firefighter radios. But the technology also enables superscanners that can be tuned to pick up the images on your neighbor's computer. That's possible because all computers emit stray radiation. With software-defined radio even amateurs could probably design equipment that could spot somebody porn-surfing in the next apartment. The technology can also make it easier to turn the cell phone of a spouse into a bug when it's not in normal use.
Pores and Wrinkles Advances in many surveillance technologies piggyback on progress in fields such as wireless signal processing, nanotechnology, and genomics. Even plain old digital cameras are hotbeds of innovation. The imaging sensors in consumer cameras have been achieving ever-higher resolutions, while plunging in price. Because the gadgets are so engaging, crowds end up participating in surveillance efforts. Witness spectators holding cameras and phones aloft whenever news breaks — an act that may aid investigations, or hold police misbehavior in check. And in biometrics, today's high-res imaging chips "are an answer to our prayers," says Mohamed Lazzouni, chief technology officer of Viisage Technology Inc., (VISG ) a Billerica (Mass.) maker of face-recognition software. "Now we are able to do things that we couldn't do three years ago."
Improved picture quality has given a boost to Viisage rival Identix Inc., allowing it to add in minute details of the skin to increase the accuracy of facial recognition. It divides a small area on the face into a 400-block grid, and then inspects each block for the size of skin pores, wrinkles, and spots. And using an infrared camera, researchers at A4Vision Inc., a Sunnyvale (Calif.) startup funded in part by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture fund, cooked up a 3D approach. Its system creates a topographical map by projecting a grid pattern of infrared light onto a face, and matching the features.
Strides in wireless signal processing are bringing the power of astronomical instruments to homeland security. Giant radio telescopes today listen to the faint energy waves emanating from stars billions of light years away. The first earthbound applications of this electronic wizardry will be airport scanners that scrutinize passengers' bags. The principle is simple: All matter gives off so-called background radiation, or millimeter-wave heat, whether it's a supernova or a switchblade. Brijot Imaging Systems Inc. recently unveiled a $60,000 system that, Brijot claims, can distinguish between the heat coming from a human body and that from a metal or plastic object — and can pull this off from distances of up to 45 feet. (The company says its system doesn't capture anatomical details.)
A kindred technology can "see" the molecular composition of matter using extremely short wavelengths of energy. When a machine made by Picometrix Inc. shines these terahertz waves on a target, its molecules resonate at a telltale frequency. One plastic explosive, for instance, vibrates at 800 gigahertz. T-rays pose no radiation hazard because they don't penetrate human skin. But people being scanned will appear naked on the monitor unless the system is programmed to cover up private parts.
Airport safety is just a small facet of the security challenge that lies ahead. Biological and chemical attacks can be ignited in any location, and spread with alarming speed. "If we could put sensing devices everywhere, maybe we could stop such attacks," says Thomas Thundat, a senior scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. But the cost is now prohibitive.
Elusive Goals The Holy Grail is a universal sensor, small and cheap enough to scatter in public places, and smart enough to sniff out anything that comes its way, without being preprogrammed to find specific molecules. Nobody is close to that goal yet, but Sandia National Laboratories has designed a lab-on-a-chip that detects a variety of both chemical and biological agents. It has skinny microchannels etched in its surface. When a gas or liquid moves through the tiny pipes, it collides with special material, and how much that slows the flow betrays the identity of the fluid. Sandia is now developing this technology to monitor the Contra Costa County (Calif.) water supply.
U.S. Genomics Inc. in Woburn, Mass., claims that it is hot on the heels of a universal sensor. Its prototype uses particular molecules to tag important DNA sequences in the genes of lethal pathogens, such as anthrax. Then, primed with a fluorescent dye, those sequences light up, and a photo detector compares the pattern of illumination with a library of known bioagents.
These systems may not be in place in time for the next attack in a Western country — let alone in Egypt or Iraq. And if terrorists hit the U.S. again, the authorities are bound to strike back. Among other things, today's restraints on racial profiling are likely to crumble. Then what? In the arms race against suicide bombers, will surveillance technologies prove their worth?
Some already have. Electronic monitoring has foiled some terrorist plots, and portals that spot guns and explosives make airports safer. Unfortunately, many of the most powerful technologies are simply too green. It may take a decade or more before networks of biochemical sensors are ready to blanket a whole city. And it could take as long before camera systems can pick a known face — terrorist or otherwise — out of the throngs. For now, only a combination of electronic monitoring and human intelligence stands a chance of holding radicals at bay.
In the meantime, scientists who labor on surveillance prototypes are encouraged that their innovations can bring benefits in health care and food safety. Over time, people may get smarter about how to live with threats and make use of technology without undermining their most basic values. They must. A country that sacrifices its citizens' freedom in the fight to protect them is no victor.
source: http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_32/b3946001_mz001.htm 31ul2005
Devices that can ID a prospective terrorist by smell? That and other security technology is on its way to make our lives safer
Starting with the first stone tools used thousands of years ago, technology has always had its pros and cons. Stones could grind corn — or split skulls. Such is the case with many of the sensors now being developed to protect civilized people from modern barbarians: terrorists.
An artificial nose as keen as a dog's, for example, might spot the smell of disease before more-conventional tests could detect it. But turned into a marketing product, it might recognize the unique scent of your body. Then, when you walk into a store, a computer would quickly search your credit-card records and greet you with an electronic message listing things you might want to buy.
People will soon be surrounded by myriad sensors. Some may be disguised as little specks on carpets or nail heads in doorways. You'll never notice most of them. But they'll sure notice you.
General Electric Co.
A Tickle of Air Finds Explosives
When you pause momentarily inside this short passageway, puffs of air tickle your skin, hair, and clothes. Compared to a pat-down by security people at airports or government buildings, it's a very gentle process — but one effective enough to dislodge tiny particles of explosives or narcotics, if any are lurking on you.
This machine, developed by General Electric, then sucks in the air and analyzes it for traces of the chemicals found in almost all explosives. The entire procedure takes just seconds, one reason the Transportation Security Administration is deploying such portals at various airports.
Picometrics
Forget X-rays, Now It's T-rays
T-rays trigger unique responses from materials. Explosives, metals, and plastics all resonate at a specific telltale frequency. Via T-ray technology, the signals from the resonating molecules are converted into clear, three-dimensional images. The images not only are sharper than X-rays but also can be peeled away to uncover a gun or plastic knife — or perhaps a sheet of explosive disguised as paper.
T-ray systems such as this one from Picometrics can also scan people. Since T-rays don't penetrate human skin, they pose no threat of dangerous radiation. But T-ray body scans see through clothing, essentially undressing a person. The Transportation Security Administration hopes that programming the computer to apply strategic fig leaves will overcome resistance to this technology.
ObjectVideo
Automating Video Surveillance
Software can make video cameras smart. Here, a system from ObjectVideo installed outside the Amtrak train station in Laurel, Md., spots a person carrying a bag on the tracks — suspicious behavior it flags as a potential threat. When he leaves the bag by the tracks, an alert instantly issues to security personnel. The software can trigger alarms in other suspicious scenarios — say, when somebody pauses for more than 10 seconds near a sensitive area.
Brijot
The Heat of Discovery
All matter gives off so-called background radiation, or millimeter-wave heat. Brijot Imaging Systems has unveiled a system that can distinguish between the heat coming from a human body and that from metal, ceramic, or plastic objects. If the shape or size of a cool object matches the stored image of a gun or knife, an alarm sounds, and the object's location is outlined on the screen image of the person. Unlike most body scanners, Brijot's system can screen people from distances of up to 45 feet.
Fujitsu
Peering Beneath the Skin
Like that of a fingerprint, the pattern of blood veins in the palm is unique to every individual. Unlike a fingerprint, however, the palm has a biometric pattern that is virtually impossible to duplicate. So Fujitsu developed a palm reader that checks the blood vessels under the skin — and people don't even have to touch the device. That alleviates concerns about hygiene, especially in hospitals, where many people touch the same biometric sensors to gain access to a room or storage cabinet.
Identix
Skin Helps to Distinguish Faces
A computer that can recognize faces as readily as people can would make the ideal aid for spotting and tracking known terrorists and criminals on streets or in transportation stations. But face-recognition systems aren't as reliable as law-enforcement officials would like. For one thing, subjects can spoof the technology by donning sunglasses or a fake beard.
But Identix (IDNX) and other suppliers are making steady progress. Identix says that, by combining the usual face scan with an inspection of pores and wrinkles in small blocks of skin, reliability is improved by at least 25%, to better than 90%.
Iris Scan
The Eyes Have It
Probably the most foolproof biometric measure is the eye's iris. Its complex pattern of zigzagging lines and random dots is much more distinctive than the whorls of a fingerprint.
In fact, because authorities in a few foreign countries are confident that iris scans can't be circumvented, they're starting to allow airlines to use iris scanning at selected airports. For the airlines, it's a perquisite for frequent fliers: If people register their iris scans, they can bypass the usual security check.
Currently, a person's eye must be in close to the scanner. Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies hope that some way can be found to scan irises from a distance — or even to spot a suspect in a crowd.
Monell
The Sweet Smell of People
Animals use smell to gauge the suitability of potential mates. The human nose lacks such fine-tuning, but scientists at the University of Pennsylvania's Monell Chemical Sense Center and other research labs are working on artificial noses that might outsniff even dogs.
One application: picking up very faint traces of smells associated with certain diseases — carbon disulfide with mental illness, for instance, or nitric oxide with cancer. Each person also seems to possess a unique body odor that doesn't change, no matter what he or she eats or drinks. Ultimately, olfactory technology might be able to identify people just by taking a whiff as they approach.
Sandia
Canals That Lead to Analysis
Microfluidics stands among the more potent sensor approaches. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratory use the science in a lab-on-a-chip that detects multiple biochemical and biological threats. Hemispherical canals of various sizes, from roughly the diameter of a human hair to a tenth of that size, are formed on silicon or glass. From the speed that a liquid or gas flows through the different sizes of curving channels, the sensor can flag the identity of a toxin or other agent. Microfluidic technology promises versatility and economy, so these sensors could get sprinkled around water reservoirs and airports.
Oak Ridge
Diving Boards for Molecules
The ultimate sensor would detect every type of substance that terrorists might use to kill or incapacitate people. One approach is in the works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: a chip outfitted with row after row of tiny "diving boards" no longer than the width of a human hair.
Each one is coated with a compound that acts like a magnet for one specific biochemical toxin or explosive. When molecules of one of these substances settle on its board's coating, the extra weight causes that board to bend, deflecting a laser beam and triggering an alert. Oak Ridge researchers envision such sensors with 10,000 diving boards.
source: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/07/surveillance/index_01.htm 31jul2005
Cell calls, e-mail, and Web uploads are rich sources of clues on terrorism
Since September 11 more than 3,000 al Qaeda operatives have been nabbed, and some 100 terrorist attacks have been blocked worldwide, according to the FBI. Details on how all this was pulled off are hush-hush. But no doubt two keys were electronic snooping — using the secret Echelon network — and computer data mining. Now, these technologies are getting tune-ups — but nagging privacy concerns won't be put to rest easily.
Echelon is the global eavesdropping system run by the National Security Agency (NSA) and its counterparts in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. For decades, Echelon's electronic ears have been scooping up all communications relayed by satellite, microwave towers, and even some fiber-optic and copper cables. Each day's intercepts — phone calls, e-mails, and Web uploads and downloads — would fill the Library of Congress 10 times.
The NSA's supercomputers strain to sift though this flood of data to spot clues of terrorism. Those documents go to human translators and analysts, and the rest is dumped. But the humans aren't as efficient as Echelon. Two Arabic messages collected on Sept. 10, 2001, hinting of a major event the next day, weren't translated until Sept. 12. Now, the intelligence agencies vow to do better, and the FBI says it has already shrunk translation delays to under 12 hours.
Long term, the goal is near real-time analysis. That would set the stage for data-mining systems that could look through multiple databases and spot oblique correlations that together warn of plots in the hatching. The Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) project was supposed to do that, but Congress killed it in 2003 because of privacy concerns. In addition to inspecting multiple commercial and government databases, TIA was designed to spin out its own terrorist scenarios — an attack on New York Harbor, say — and then determine effective means to uncover and blunt the plots spawned by computers. It might have considered searching customer lists of diving schools and outfits that rent scuba gear, then looking for similar names on visa application or airline passenger lists.
TIA is dead, but the concept lives on. Most companies involved in database management, big and small, now offer tools to quiz the database of a willing partner. And to forestall another privacy panic, various methods have emerged to keep personal and company-confidential information under wraps during such database sharing. Most of these are explored in a massive 2003 report from a blue-ribbon commission convened by the Markle Foundation think tank. Members of the group included Netscape Communications Corp. (TWX ) founder James L. Barksdale and Craig J. Mundie, a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ) chief technologist. The Markle study recommends ways to ensure that personal data won't normally be revealed, even to intelligence and law-enforcement types with proper clearances.
One tool is "anonymization." Using what's called hashing in cryptography, names and Social Security numbers can be converted into a meaningless jumble of letters and digits. Data-mining software would still be able to search and correlate separate databases — spotting suspicious financial transactions in bank databases, for example. But personal details would remain cloaked until an agent marshals enough corroborating evidence to justify a warrant to decrypt them.
Technology will never eliminate terrorism, but techniques such as advanced data mining are some of the more powerful tools available right now for preventing future attacks.
By Otis Port in New York
source: http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_32/b3946007_mz001.htm 31jul2005
The Blair Administration's proposal for biometric ID cards looked like a goner — until the July 7 attacks. But critics still worry about their intrusiveness
Until recently, the British government's ambitious plans to introduce biometric identity cards looked dead in the water. After all, previous attempts to launch ID cards, most recently in 2003, collapsed in the face of public and political opposition to a system deemed unnecessarily intrusive and potentially costly. A June 28 survey by polling outfit YouGov showed support for ID cards had fallen to 45%, from 78% two years ago.
But then came the July 7 bombings of London's transportation system, which killed more than 50 people, and a failed similar attack two weeks later. Now the government is banking on a change in public opinion about the biometric cards, which are a central plank of the Labour government's counterterrorism plans. Prime Minister Tony Blair calls the cards an "idea whose time has come."
If Blair gets his way, Britain, which hasn't issued ID cards since Winston Churchill abolished the practice in 1952, will have the most detailed, centralized biometric database in the world by 2008. The new cards would contain personal details such as name, gender, place and date of birth, current and previous addresses, and immigration status, as well as a microchip with a digital photograph, fingerprints, and iris scans. Phased in gradually from 2008 onward, the voluntary ID cards aren't expected to become compulsory before 2013 — and then only if Parliament agrees.
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. The government says the cards, which are intended to supplement, not replace, new biometric passports to be phased in beginning next year, are an important weapon in combating everything from identity fraud and illegal immigration to terrorism. After successfully passing a second vote in the House of Commons at the end of June, the identity card bill will go for a final vote when Parliament reconvenes in October. Blair, however, is confident that the bill will make it onto the statute books by June, 2006.
Britain, which took over a six-month presidency of the European Union on July 1, is also trying to convince the rest of Europe to get on board. Britain recently submitted a proposal calling for any EU member country that already uses identity cards to adhere to a common biometric standard and include electronic fingerprints. At the end of last year, the EU already had agreed that member states' passports should contain facial biometrics starting in mid-2006 and fingerprints in 2008, and that visas and residents' permits should also be issued with biometrics.
If the EU agrees to Britain's suggestion, "This will effectively mean that everyone living in the EU will be compulsorily fingerprinted and this biometric, plus identifying personal data, will first be stored on national database and then on an EU-wide database," says Tony Bunyon of Statewatch, a nonprofit group tracking civil rights within the EU. He believes this could create a "society where every movement and every communication is under surveillance."
COST QUESTIONS. It's unclear whether Britain has indeed suggested a common database among EU member countries. And certainly, such a suggestion would be the subject of fierce debate. What is clear is that Britain's proposals, for both at home and within the EU, go far beyond the ID card systems already in place in Europe.
Britain's idea of a centralized database that allows for sharing of information among government agencies, which is what it wants at least at home, is unusual in Europe, where many countries with ID cards have strong legal protections in place to prevent this kind of information sharing, according to the anti-ID card lobby NO2ID. The group claims that in Germany the centralization of such records is forbidden for historical reasons, while Belgium uses modern encryption methods and local storage to protect privacy and prevent data-sharing.
It's an ambitious project, but before the British government can set the agenda for Europe it will need to overcome remaining opposition from civil-rights groups and politicians at home. Opponents say the new ID cards will be expensive and invasive. While the government claims the new system will cost $10.7 billion over the next decade, a recent study by a group of academics at the London School of Economics put the cost at roughly double that.
The LSE report also found that no other government in the world had proposed an identity card with such a vast amount of electronic information. Under Labour's plan, the cards would include a record of every address where an individual has lived both in Britain and abroad, and a record of every time the card is used, whether at the border, to claim benefits, or access health-care records.
"ELECTRONIC DIARY." "The government's goal is to create an audit trail of an individual's movements, a sort of electronic diary for every individual in Britain," says Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, a London-based human-rights group and one of the authors of the LSE report. "The trend emerging within Britain is one of universal and ubiquitous surveillance."
Even British Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, appointed by the government to report to Parliament on privacy issues, calls the ID card database excessive and warns that the country risks "sleepwalking into a surveillance society."
The big worry in Britain is that an extensive amount of personal information will be available on one massive centralized database. "The creation of this detailed data trail of individuals' activities is particularly worrying," says Thomas. "It cannot be viewed in isolation of other initiatives, which serve to build a detailed picture of people's lives, such as CCTV surveillance, automatic number-plate recognition recording vehicle movements for law enforcement and congestion charging, and the proposals to introduce satellite tracking of vehicles for road-use charging."
IMPERFECT WORLD. Opponents also have concerns that biometric aren't foolproof, despite scientific claims. There are people for whom some biometrics won't work — those who are missing digits or eyes, or who have physical conditions that render one or more biometrics unstable or difficult to read. Factor in potential technical difficulties or operator mistakes, and there's the possibility for serious errors.
"A lot of people say if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear," says Dr. Suzanne Lace, a senior policy officer with Britain's National Consumer Council in London and author of the recently published book The Glass Consumer: Life in a Surveillance Society. But, she adds, "that only holds true in a perfect society where the information is always accurate and only guilty people come under suspicion."
There's no doubt that Labour's plan still has its critics, who worry about potential abuse of the ID card system. But with public fear about terrorism rising in the aftermath of the attacks, the government reckons that Britons will come to see ID cards differently.
Capell is a senior correspondent for BusinessWeek in London EDITED BY Edited by Patricia O'Connell
source: http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_32/b3946009_mz001.htm 31jul2005
Lip readers, doctored cell phones, and laser bugs mean little that is whispered goes unheard at the world body's New York HQ
The U.N.'s 18-acre plot on the East Side of Manhattan, punctuated by the 39-story-tall Secretariat building, is almost certainly the hub of the most spied-upon community in the world. Spokes of surveillance extend to the nearby brownstone buildings that house many of the missions of the U.N.'s 191 member countries — and to the apartment buildings and restaurants where U.N. officials and workers live and dine.
At the U.N., the watchword is simple: Everybody spies on everybody else, friend and foe alike, all the time. Newcomers are advised to assume that their offices, homes, and cars are bugged. All phone calls and e-mails are intercepted, either with physical phone taps — often several, installed by various countries — or by the forest of antennas atop many buildings, which pluck electronic signals out of the air. The only countries that don't monitor others' electronic communications are those that can't afford to do so.
HO-HUM SCANDAL. Then there's the U.S. National Security Agency's Echelon network, which can target e-mail and phone calls to and from the U.N., thanks to eavesdropping sites as far off as Britain or Australia. These sites have giant radio antennas that can pick up all traffic handled by communications satellites. Echelon's biggest listening post is at Menwith Hill in England's Yorkshire moors. It's run by Britain's counterpart of the NSA, the General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
Menwith Hill was the epicenter of a famous snooping fiasco that the NSA would no doubt like to sweep under the carpet. On Jan. 31, 2003, the NSA sent a top-secret e-mail asking GCHQ translators to pay particular attention to phone calls and electronic messages to and from the six temporary members of the U.N. Security Council. Washington wanted to know the "whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge" in the arm-wrestling over U.N. deliberations to authorize the invasion of Iraq. Katharine Gun, a 29-year-old translator at Menwith Hill, was outraged. She leaked the message to the press.
Early last year, London elected not to prosecute Gun. Clare Short, who had spent six years as international development secretary in Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, was interviewed on radio about the decision. During the broadcast, Short dropped a bombshell: "The UK in this time [2003] was also spying on Kofi Annan's office," she said. "I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations."
READ THEIR LIPS. Back at the U.N., Short's revelation caused barely a ripple. Eavesdropping is so endemic that some countries, such as Pakistan and Bulgaria, rarely bother to summon technicians to sweep their offices with bug-detecting equipment. Any bug removed today will just get replaced tomorrow, they figure. Besides, the eavesdropping device might be across the street or in a parked car — for example, lasers trained on windows can record minute vibrations in the glass created by conversations and translate those movements back into sounds.
In movies, surveillance subjects often stroll in the park (the U.N. has a small one) to escape listening devices. But that's no guarantee of privacy, either. There are long-range sound microphones that can zoom in on a particular person from a distance. Or a lip-reading spook may be following an outdoor conversation through binoculars.
Lip readers often vie for strategic tables at restaurants so they can monitor the lunch talk of U.N. officials. The U.N. folks know this, and they've become experts at whispering through clenched teeth or behind menus when they say anything confidential.
SPY IN THE POCKET. So where do U.N. diplomats go to hold secret talks? The missions of many countries have specially constructed, windowless and soundproof rooms. Often, they also boast electronic shields, typically a wire mesh, under all surfaces — walls, floor, and ceiling. Those rooms get a once-over with bug-detecting gear before each session.
For added security, participants are usually asked either to leave their cell phones outside or to turn them off. That's because a cell phone can be used as a bug. In addition to the frequency over which users normally chat, cell phones have another frequency for communicating with a base station.
Intelligence agencies can use this control frequency to open the microphone of a turned-on, idle cell phone and — unbeknownst to the user — eavesdrop on whatever is transpiring in the vicinity. The same goes for the cellular-radio systems in cars, such as General Motors's (GM ) OnStar technology.
Digital cell phones that use frequency hopping, known as spread-spectrum technology, are safe from most commercial scanners. But not from some spy agencies, which use equipment that pretends to be a base station and disables the handset's frequency hopping. Or they can pull a cloak-and-dagger job and install taps at a cellular company's base station.
INCESSANT AND INEVITABLE. What's it like to live under constant and continual surveillance? U.N. staffers shrug and say, "You get used to it." Of course, their own country's spies are probably playing the game, too, so they can't complain too much.
Maybe that's how all the worrying and gnashing of teeth over the erosion of privacy in this post-9/11 world will culminate: in resignation.
If snooping technology becomes so common that almost anyone can stick a nose into the affairs of anyone else, as seems likely, everyone will just take it for granted. The U.N. may be a preview of what's in store for all of us.
By BusinessWeek Senior Writer Otis Port in New York
source: http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_32/b3946010_mz001.htm 31jul2005
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