Our Biometric Future: The Social Construction of an Emerging Information Technology
type: CreativeWork
description: "This dissertation investigates the social and cultural dimensions of new information technologies known as biometrics. Biometrics are designed to generate digital readings of the body as a means of identifying individuals, enlisting a number of communication technologies, including photography, video, and computer hardware and software. Applications include criminal identification, border control, building and computer security. This project examines the social construction of facial recognition, a unique and technically challenging type of biometric, from early research and development in the 1960s to its incorporation into the US-VISIT automated entry/exit system mandated by post-9/11 U.S. federal policy. The methodology combines cultural analysis, political economy, and the social construction of technology (SCOT) approach, drawing from scientific articles, press accounts, U.S. government documents, company web sites and publicity materials, conference proceedings, popular culture texts, interviews with individuals involved in biometric research and implementation, participant observation at industry conferences, and a site visit to Tampa, Florida to observe a biometric system in operation. The questions addressed throughout the dissertation concern precisely what is new about biometrics, how and why they are becoming incorporated into our institutional and cultural practices, and with what social and political implications. The translation of the body into data for the purposes of identification is a need and a practice peculiar to the digital age, although not without connections to history, especially to the problems of identification related to the expansion of the modern state. The aim of the latest innovation in identification systems is to automate the process of connecting bodies to identities in order to control access---access to the benefits of citizenship, to the national territory, to information and computer networks, to transportation systems, and…
abstract: "This dissertation investigates the social and cultural dimensions of new information technologies known as biometrics. Biometrics are designed to generate digital readings of the body as a means of identifying individuals, enlisting a number of communication technologies, including photography, video, and computer hardware and software. Applications include criminal identification, border control, building and computer security. This project examines the social construction of facial recognition, a unique and technically challenging type of biometric, from early research and development in the 1960s to its incorporation into the US-VISIT automated entry/exit system mandated by post-9/11 U.S. federal policy. The methodology combines cultural analysis, political economy, and the social construction of technology (SCOT) approach, drawing from scientific articles, press accounts, U.S. government documents, company web sites and publicity materials, conference proceedings, popular culture texts, interviews with individuals involved in biometric research and implementation, participant observation at industry conferences, and a site visit to Tampa, Florida to observe a biometric system in operation. The questions addressed throughout the dissertation concern precisely what is new about biometrics, how and why they are becoming incorporated into our institutional and cultural practices, and with what social and political implications. The translation of the body into data for the purposes of identification is a need and a practice peculiar to the digital age, although not without connections to history, especially to the problems of identification related to the expansion of the modern state. The aim of the latest innovation in identification systems is to automate the process of connecting bodies to identities in order to control access---access to the benefits of citizenship, to the national territory, to information and computer networks, to transportation systems, and…
author: Gates, Kelly Allison
language: eng
keywords: Information Science
date published: 2015-09-28T15:15:31Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:26:27Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/86567