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Thumbprints Used To Check Books Out of School Library
krou writes "Junior students at Higher Lane Primary in Whitefield, Greater Manchester, are in a trial of a system that uses their thumbprints to check out and return books from a library. The thumbprints are 'digitally transformed into electronic codes, which can then be recognized by a computer program.' The system was developed by Microsoft, and is being trialled elsewhere in the country. NO2ID condemned the system, saying it was appalling, and that 'It conditions children to hand over sensitive personal information.' The headmaster has defended the scheme, saying, 'We have researched this scheme thoroughly. It is a biometric recognition system and no image of a fingerprint is ever stored. It is a voluntary system. The thumbprint creates a mathematical template. All parents have been written to and we have told them what the system is all about. From the responses we have had there has been overwhelming support. We hold a lot of information about children because we are a school. This is no different.'"
School bans gummi bears
Personally, I'm less worried about the 'privacy' of my thumbprint, and more worried that, generally, it's too *easy* to get my thumbprint.
While this probably isn't much of a worry with a school library checkout system, I'm worried that with something like a thumbprint, which never changes, eventually it gets too easy for someone to get access to your thumbprint and 'forge' authentication/authorization.
It's the same problem I have with the use of Social Security No.s - you start out life, and your SS # is basically secret - your parents know it, and it's in the SS Admin.'s computers. Right there, though, because it is in government computers, potentially thousands of people have access to it. Now, your parents sign you up for school, and they enter your SS # info into the local school district database. Then you get a savings account at the bank, and they ask for your SS #. You apply for jobs, and they ask for your social security number. You sign up for a credit card, or a checking account, an IRA, or an application for an apartment, and they ask for your Social Security number. You apply to college, and each college wants your SS#.
By the time your 25 or 30, your Social Security number is in dozens of different databases and millions of employees have access to those databases, and your SS # is basically worthless as a 'secret' which identifies you - it's no longer secret.
You could have the same problem with biometric identification (although at first glance, that might seem impossible), because, fundamentally, biometric information such as a fingerprint, retina scan, or DNA sequence, is reproducible data - ultimately, no system can guarantee that the actual finger or eye or DNA was scanned - all that the 'server' can verify is that the correct 'data' corresponding to previously recorded data, was transmitted over the network to the server. So, compromise a terminal (or setup a computer which masquerades as a valid 'terminal'), then send the correct 'data' from that terminal, and the server will assume that the user's thumb or retina was scanned.
I'm really can't offer any advice on a better alternative, but mark my words - if biometric identification becomes widespread, the identity thieves will not have too much difficulty adapting - as the biometric id becomes widespread, it will get harder and harder to keep the identification 'data' secret, and fraudsters will steal that data like any other bit of data, and misuse it.
The *real* security threat is that people will start to get a stronger and stronger belief in the 'infallibility' of such biometric identification, and so people will lose the ability to repudiate false authorizations. Juries and judges, if they have too strong of an assurance on the evidence provided by biometric identification, may produce verdicts/rulings which unjustly penalize innocent people.
Why the heck does a six year old need a library card or a PIN in the first place?
The problem here is assuming that everything must be computerized... for no good reason other than everything must be computerized. When I was six, the teacher pulling a card from the pocket in the book, having me print my name, stamping the card and the book with with the due date, and then filing the card worked just fine.
I'm no luddite or technophobe by any stretch, but sometimes electronic/automated systems are solutions in search of a problem.