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Unisys to pitch for biometrics Akweli Parker / Philadelphia Inquirer | April 28 2006 Next week in Austin, Texas, some of the world's top technologists will ponder ways to make our increasingly vital computer networks more useful, more interdependent and less vulnerable. Against that backdrop at the World Congress on Information Technology, Blue Bell-based Unisys Corp. will present a case for embedding one of its key and controversial product lines - biometrics - into that electronic landscape. Biometrics is the use of fingerprints, eyeball scans, voice prints, and other unique physical traits to identify individuals and often to grant or deny access, either electronically or physically. Unisys designs biometrics systems for industry and government customers. Unisys said this week that its research showed a majority of people it surveyed worldwide supported such computer-aided ID methods, particularly as a preventive to fraud and identity theft. "It's difficult now to know who you are getting an e-mail from, or if you're signing up for a magazine subscription or if paying a debt" online, said Mark Cohn, vice president of Unisys' homeland security solutions division. In this age of prolific electronic databases, it is relatively easy to steal a Social Security number, piece together shreds of personal information, and pass yourself off as another living individual. Biometric technologies virtually ensure the user is who he says he is. In Unisys' survey, 70 percent of respondents favored biometrics technologies administered by a bank, hospital or government agency as a way to verify someone's identity. Eight-two percent of those supporters cited the convenience of not having to remember a password or other log-in data, Unisys said. Cohn said that airline passengers in a recent pilot program with the Transportation Security Administration generally gave biometrics high marks because the rapid-ID systems sped up typically slow airport security check-ins. These experimental "registered traveler" programs matched passengers' fingerprints or iris scans with information collected by the government, letting voluntary enrollees bypass time-consuming secondary security screenings. Unisys, which has struggled financially over the last year, could stand to profit handsomely if businesses and governments adopted its biometrics products en masse. Cohn said Unisys wanted to impress upon the tech congress' delegates next week the need for global standards in authenticating people's identities. Some civil-liberties groups, however, say biometrics represent a Pandora's Box of new threats. "Biometric identifiers will solve one set of problems and create another set of problems," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. Hacking into computer servers full of people's biometrics files will be even more tempting and lucrative to thieves than getting Social Security numbers - because the information will equip thieves with access to so many more things, Rotenberg said. Other, non-database systems are no panacea either, he said. "You can capture a fingerprint off of a reader with something as simple as a Gummi Bear." The American Civil Liberties Union argues that proliferation of such technologies, coupled with myopic public policy, is causing a drift toward a "surveillance society." Cohn of Unisys said the Big Brother worries, while understandable, are misplaced. "What we're advocating are voluntary systems, or systems where people can choose to participate," Cohn said. He added, "There's a tremendous problem in our country and Western Europe especially, with identity fraud." Vigilance against abuses to biometrics data is needed, he said, and Unisys intends to raise that issue, among others, at the world tech conference next week, Cohn said. When it comes to thwarting would-be online ne'er-do-wells, "there doesn't seem to be a better answer," Cohn said. ---------------------------------------------------
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