World View | In the Land of Cheese, Tulips and Biometrics

August 18, 2008 — CSO — There is a quiet revolution taking place in the Netherlands. It is an innovation that is revolutionary in terms of the impact it will have on society, commerce and civil liberties. Yet, this revolution is taking place with scarcely any detectable public discussion of the issue. The revolution I am speaking of is the use of biometrics to authenticate the identities of people in daily situations.

Last month I wrote about a large Dutch grocery store chain, Albert Heijn, implementing finger scans as a method of paying for groceries at the checkout stand. The method is a much faster method of payment since a scan of a finger takes much less time that the prototypical customer fumbling around in their purse or wallet seeking either a bank card or the correct amount of cash.

The program also has the benefit of reducing fraud — especially bank card theft. A thief can steal a card and use it without notice, but he would be highly conspicuous were he to attempt to pay at the checkout stand with a severed finger. If the trial goes well in the pilot program, Albert Heijn has plans to expand the program to other stores and perhaps eventually roll it out on a national basis.

In May of this year, Schiphol international airport in Amsterdam announced a trial with iris scans and fingerprints for identification on flights between the Netherlands and the US. Like fingerprints, the iris is unique for every individual and can thus be used to uniquely authenticate identities. Passengers wishing to use the system must first have a scan made of the iris of their eye and fingers which is then stored in a database. At the border control, biometric scanners are then used to authenticate arriving passengers at immigration control.

The publicly stated purpose of the program is to enable Dutch and American passengers to avoid queues and process through immigration control more quickly. The true purpose, of course, is to tighten security — specifically checking the identities of persons entering the country and interdicting potential terrorists or criminals. Biometric scans are a more trustworthy manner of authenticating persons than comparing a passport photograph to the person standing in front of the counter at immigration control. The fact that passengers using the program might be processed in a more speedy fashion is merely an incidental benefit.

What is interesting is that both programs, grocery checkout and immigration control, are using improved customer service and response times as the means for selling what is essentially an improved security service. In the former case, it is being used to reduce fraud on the part of customers attempting to pay for groceries with stolen bank cards; in the latter case to better detect, screen and deter terrorists and criminals.