Miracle, magic, or just good technology.

Myth 6: The silver bullet

So often biometrics are touted as the silver bullet that will rid the world of evil. Again this is to over-estimate and misunderstand the abilities of biometric technology.

For instance, contrary to common belief, biometric systems are not able to confirm with any level of certainty the true identity of a person. Rather, they are able to confirm whether this is the same person that initially enrolled into the system.

The person’s true identity is irrelevant to the biometric system. Confirming a person’s true identity is far more a question of checking the validity of an individual’s official identification documents, such as birth certificates or driving licences.

Biometric technologies are also unable to perform miracles. If a government doesn’t have a quality photograph of a known terrorist suspect, then the chances of stopping that person at a checkpoint using facial recognition are slim.

All that said, biometrics can play a valuable assisting role in the fight against organised crime and terrorism, but it must be part of a holistic approach, which uses many different strands of information.

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