Biometric Identification, Law and Ethics

This book undertakes a multifaceted and integrated examination of biometric identification, including the current state of the technology, how it is being used, the key ethical issues, and the implications for law and regulation. The five chapters examine the main forms of contemporary biometrics–fingerprint recognition, facial recognition and DNA identification– as well the integration of biometric data with other forms of personal data, analyses key ethical concepts in play, including privacy, individual autonomy, collective responsibility, and joint ownership rights, and proposes a raft of principles to guide the regulation of biometrics in liberal democracies.Biometric identification technology is developing rapidly and being implemented more widely, along with other forms of information technology. As products, services and communication moves online, digital identity and security is becoming more important. Biometric identification facilitates this transition. Citizens now use biometrics to access a smartphone or obtain a passport; law enforcement agencies use biometrics in association with CCTV to identify a terrorist in a crowd, or identify a suspect via their fingerprints or DNA; and companies use biometrics to identify their customers and employees. In some cases the use of biometrics is governed by law, in others the technology has developed and been implemented so quickly that, perhaps because it has been viewed as a valuable security enhancement, laws regulating its use have often not been updated to reflect new applications. However, the technology associated with biometrics raises significant ethical problems, including in relation to individual privacy, ownership of biometric data, dual use and, more generally, as is illustrated by the increasing use of biometrics in authoritarian states such as China, the potential for unregulated biometrics to undermine fundamental principles of liberal democracy. Resolving these ethical problems is a vital step towards more effective regulation.Ethics & Philosophy of Technolog

Subject to predicate risk, governance and the event of terrorism within post-9/11 U.S. border security

As a result of the 9/11 terror attacks, a new and far-reaching form of security governance has emerged within the United States under the heading of 'homeland security'. While this mode of security has brought with it a range of domestic counter-terrorism efforts, such as new methods of preparedness in the event of attacks on American cities, as well as mechanisms to seize and cut off terrorist assets, it has also predominantly been oriented towards the development of a new legal, institutional and technological regime responsible for the management and risk assessment of individual identity and the identities of foreign nationals passing through U.S. borders. Although this mode of security provides new powers as well as more flexible and collaborative methods for U.S. customs, law enforcement and intelligence to address the threat of terrorism, it has also created political controversy. This controversy has rested upon the perception that homeland security methods embody an unchecked extension of executive power negatively impacting the rights and liberties of the individuals that these very security techniques were established to protect. In order to interrogate this controversy and analyse how this new form of security performs within an extended field of sovereign power, this thesis takes into account the laws, policies and technologies – biometric, datamining, database – that shape this new form of security at the border. This new form of security arguably not only embodies a mobilisation and empowerment of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies which understand terrorism as catastrophic and generational, but it can fundamentally be seen as creating a new infrastructure that allows U.S. security institutions to become more 'informationally' aware of the identities of individuals entering and exiting the country. How U.S. security institutions access such identity information, along with how this data is used, is what constitutes the new social and political reality at the border

Patient Safety As An Interactional Achievement: Conversational Analysis In The Trauma Center Of An Inner City Hospital

In this dissertation, I apply the methodology of Conversational Analysis to highlight the informal communication of an emergency room work group with the objective of discovering recurrent patterns of interaction and the inherent relational work necessary to accomplish the safe medical care of patients in a Trauma Code on a level of safety comparative to that of ultra-safe systems as described in the literature of High Reliability Organizations. The significance of relational elements of interaction on emerging social order is highlighted in processes of attunement, or the diminishing of difference of status in the use of mitigated speech and the co-construction of narrative. The use of mitigated speech and narrative serve as conversational moves of consequence, by which participants seek cooperation, coordination, and collaborate in face-to-face interaction, in a mutually constructed course of action; that is, in providing safe medical care in a highly complex and high risk environment

With renewables for energy security

Taking into account the possible future exhaustion of fossil energy sources, the actual and near danger of climate change, the drastic increase of the greenhouse gases in the last 200 years, as well as the growing need for sustainable development, consumption and liveable environment, the increasing necessity of renewable energy sources becomes clear. Utilization of these energy sources have to acquire a bigger role in the field of energy supply, in order to enhance the energy security of Hungary, to decline the energy import dependence, to reduce the negative environmental impacts, and to recover the economy. The world’s hunger for energy is growing exponentially; this is why it is crucial to establish feasibility scenarios in the next decades, which are able to meet these expectations, and to increase the safety of the energy supply

With renewables for energy security

Taking into account the possible future exhaustion of fossil energy sources, the actual and near danger of climate change, the drastic increase of the greenhouse gases in the last 200 years, as well as the growing need for sustainable development, consumption and liveable environment, the increasing necessity of renewable energy sources becomes clear. Utilization of these energy sources have to acquire a bigger role in the field of energy supply, in order to enhance the energy security of Hungary, to decline the energy import dependence, to reduce the negative environmental impacts, and to recover the economy. The world’s hunger for energy is growing exponentially; this is why it is crucial to establish feasibility scenarios in the next decades, which are able to meet these expectations, and to increase the safety of the energy supply

Identification of the Incapacitated Patient in Mass Casualty Events: An Examination of Challenges, Barriers and Solutions

Increasing scrutiny of the role and actions of emergency responders in the aftermath of mass casualty events continues to elicit the need for changes and advances in terms of treatment and care. Despite improvements in some areas, there is a growing concern relating to the identification of incapacitated patients who are unable to provide any identifying details. The use of visual identification and the reliance on personal effects within the vicinity of victims, both living and deceased, has resulted in mistaken identification in a number of major incidents internationally. There is a misguided emphasis on the identification of the deceased over that of the living incapacitated victim. This research examines the practicalities of using scientific methods for identification of the deceased, such as those used in INTERPOL’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) process, and questions whether they should be broadened to include those who are incapacitated and unable to confirm their own identity. The study uses qualitative ethnographic analysis, triangulating observation of two large mass casualty and fatality exercises, interviews with front-line responders and subject-matter experts and corresponding documentation and fieldnotes to critically examine the challenges, barriers and solutions to determining an unconscious patient’s identity. In addition, analysis of previous cases of identification errors was carried out using Turner’s Incubation Theory as a basis for understanding the causative factors. This thesis establishes that despite the growing number of these cases, and the successful implementation of DVI techniques with the incapacitated in the aftermath of two recent terrorist attacks, lessons are not being learned. There remains a resistance to organisational learning from a crisis and an unwillingness to change practices that are no longer sufficient or relevant. Ultimately, the application of DVI on its own to resolve identification issues is insufficient. The empirical evidence established as a result of this study demonstrates that successful implementation of DVI requires better awareness of these issues, including the latent failures present in the Incubation Period. Perceived barriers, including questions over the legal viability of DVI when used with the living, will need to be overcome. This can be achieved through awareness, planning and training and ultimately steered by effective strategic leadership with a desire to improve the culture of emergency response across an organisation. Failure to adopt this strategy alongside the application of DVI will result in harms, not only to victims and their families as a result of identification errors, but importantly to the responders themselves. If organisations fail in their duty to plan for and respond to mass casualty incidents involving unidentified and unknown incapacitated patients, the responders themselves will become victims of psychosocial stress and harm