By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is promoting “Enhanced Border Security Agreements” by offering access to the department’s vast biometric databanks to foreign states that agree to reciprocate, according to a July 22 Statewatch report.

A DHS document, “DHS International Biometric Information Sharing (IBIS) Program,” is effectively a “sales pitch” to potential “foreign partners,” Statewatch said.

According to the document, the IBIS Program provides “a scalable, reliable, and rapid bilateral biometric and biographic information sharing capability to support border security and immigration vetting.”

Biometric technologies work by identifying unique features in the biological traits of a person and comparing them with stored information to see if a person is who they say they are.

According to DHS, these traits — which could be physical, such as a fingerprint or iris pattern, or behavioral, such as voice patterns — are used for “automated recognition” of individuals.

Some human rights and civil liberties advocates raised concerns about the collection of people’s biometric information by the DHS, foreign governments and corporations.

“It’s not just the surveillance and the buying and selling of your data that is worrisome,“ John Whitehead, a civil liberties attorney and author told The Defender.

“The ramifications of a government — any government — having this much unregulated, unaccountable power to target, track, round up and detain its citizens is beyond chilling,” he said.

The soaring use of biometric technologies is about money and profits, Whitehead said.

Whitehead:

“We have been reduced to data bits and economic units to be bought, bartered and sold to the highest bidder by the government and corporate America.

“This creepy new era of government/corporate spying — in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted — makes the NSA’s [U.S. National Security Agency] surveillance appear almost antiquated in comparison.”

The extensive surveillance of U.S. citizens — first revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, and the subject of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — still operates with no judicial and limited congressional oversight, according to a June 2021 report in The Washington Post.

While the NSA’s continued surveillance of citizens is problematic, Whitehead said he’s more concerned about today’s genetic “panopticon” — a digital prison of constant surveillance — in which “we’re all suspects in a DNA lineup, waiting to be matched with a crime.”

“In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its muscles in a show of power, we are all guilty of some transgression or other,” Whitehead co-wrote in a July 27 article for the Rutherford Institute.

‘We’re being surveilled right down to our genes’

Corporations and governments around the world are rapidly investing in new technologies for identifying and tracking people, according to Global Newswire, which in June estimated the market to be worth just north of $49 billion in 2022 — and projected it will more than double, to $102 billion, by 2027.

The global human identification market, which comprises DNA biometric technologies used for forensics, paternity tests and “other applications” is projected to reach $6,435.6 million by 2032 — more than four-and-a-half times the industry’s profits in 2021 — Global News Wire reported last month.

The 231-page report published last month on ReportLinker highlighted prevailing trends in the human identification market and factors driving market growth, including increasing demand for human identification products and technologies.

Commenting on the prolific use of biometric technologies, Whitehead said:

“We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics — our faces, irises, voices, genetics, even our gait — runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique ‘identifiers,’ and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.”

According to Whitehead, a current for-profit surveillance capitalism scheme that threatens people’s privacy is made possible with individuals’ cooperation.

“All those disclaimers you scroll through without reading them, the ones written in minute font, only to quickly click on the ‘Agree’ button at the end so you can get to the next step — downloading software, opening up a social media account, adding a new app to your phone or computer — those signify your written consent to having your activities monitored, recorded and shared,” Whitehead said.

He also noted that “every move you make” online is “monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated” so that marketers can get a picture of who you are, what makes you tick and how they can best influence and/or control you.

Whitehead said:

“With every smartphone we buy, every GPS device we install, every Twitter, Facebook, and Google account we open, every frequent buyer card we use for purchases — whether at the grocer’s, the yogurt shop, the airlines or the department store — and every credit and debit card we use to pay for our transactions, we’re helping corporate America build a dossier for its government counterparts on who we know, what we think, how we spend our money and how we spend our time.”

On any given day, Whitehead said, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by government and corporate eyes and ears.

He added:

“The technology has advanced so far that marketers (political campaigns are among the worst offenders) can actually build ‘digital fences’ around your homes, workplaces, friends and family’s homes and other places you visit in order to bombard you with specially crafted messages aimed at achieving a particular outcome.”

Whitehead said the level of transgression by corporations on individuals’ privacy is so invasive that if the perpetrators were individual stalkers, those falling prey might call the police.

But that wouldn’t be effective in this situation, he said, because U.S. law enforcement services are frequently involved in biometric surveillance.

Whitehead said:

“If anyone else stalked us in this way — tailing us wherever we go, tapping into our calls, reading our correspondence, ferreting out our secrets, profiling and targeting us based on our interests and activities — we’d call the cops.”