Can my biometric be collected covertly?

Users may have concerns about being identified or tracked by covert applications
(both legal and illegal). Users may feel they have a right to know when their biometrics
are being collected and have a right to opt-out of biometric data collection. If
biometrics can be collected covertly, they have no way to know whether such rights are
being upheld. Examples are surveillance applications which are checking against a
“watch list”, looking for known terrorists or criminals, or something more innocuous like
a commercial application looking for – say – favoured customers in a shop.
Some biometrics can be easily used ‘covertly’. For example face recognition, speaker
verification, and gait recognition can work from a distance. There is no obvious way of
knowing whether a CCTV camera is biometrically enabled. Even close-up and contact
biometrics could be used covertly – e.g. recognition of latent fingerprints, covert
fingerprint sensor in doorknob, or iris recognition through a 1-way mirror
Non biometric identifiers cannot be so easily covertly collected in most cases (but note
the example of the contact-less or RFID cards). However cards can be copied and
passwords divulged, unknown to the authorised user, with similar consequences.

Related posts:

1. Will I know when and how my biometric has been used?
2. Could I accidentally give my biometric ‘signature’?
3. Spoofing physiological biometric
4. UPEK has integrated its biometric hardware and Protector Suite
5. Mimicry is to behavioural biometrics
6. biometrics resource

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