Maguire, Mark (2009) The birth of biometric security. Anthropology Today, 25 (2). pp. 9-14. ISSN 0268-540X

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Abstract

We are currently witnessing a rapid rise in biometric security. Borders are apparently becoming ‘smart’; passports are becoming e-passports, and when you set out on your travels your data double is already at your destination. Access to airports and even continents will increasingly be determined not by your national citizenship but by the security of your identity. Biometric security has received little anthropological attention despite historical associations with the discipline. Here I wish to outline a brief genealogy of biometric security in order to argue that, beyond the apparent newness of the technology, key biometric technologies owe their origins to 19th-entury deployments and then as now they may be understood as a form of bio-governmentality in which the security of identity opens possibilities for population control.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Biometric security;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Anthropology
Item ID:	3014
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8322.2009.00654.x
Depositing User:	Mark Maguire
Date Deposited:	23 Jan 2012 09:51
Journal or Publication Title:	Anthropology Today
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
Refereed:	Yes
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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