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Users may be concerned that the use of biometric authentication will increase the
danger that they will find themselves targeted by ruthless criminals who are intent on
gaining entry to the assets protected by the biometric. With non-biometric
authentication, cards, keys, and passwords could be stolen and used by criminals
without the presence of the user. If biometrics are employed so that the physical
presence of the user is required, this may place the user at more risk.
It is hard to produce a definitive analysis of the situation, in the absence of any long
term experience with widely deployed biometric systems. One is left to a speculative
consideration on likely scenarios and outcomes. Nowadays, even low grade crimes
are frequently accompanied with physical assault (e.g. muggings) for small gains such
as cash, mobile phones or credit cards. If biometrics were used to provide
authentication for (say) credit card transactions and mobile phone calls, would this
increase or decrease the likelihood or degree of violence employed? It could
reasonably be argued that petty criminals usually go for “hit and run” attacks and don’t
want to hang around forcing victims to go to ATM machines and withdraw cash etc.
For this type of crime, it seems likely that biometric authentication would act as a
deterrent.
Biometric Security Concerns produced for the UK Biometric Working Group. Last updated September
2003
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For serious, organised crime, violence is endemic and may be used directly against
victims or their families and friends. Again, it is not clear that the use of biometrics
would make a significant difference to the frequency or degree of coercion and
violence used.
Solutions
Contrary to the concern expressed, the use of biometrics may actually serve to reduce
the likelihood of coercion, because in many cases it would be likely to increase the risk
of arrest for the perpetrator.
Effective liveness checks would act as a countermeasure to the successful use of
cadavers or severed limbs etc. and hence to the motivation for such attempts.
The use of biometrics (and other electronic authentication) provides an opportunity for
the use of duress codes to allow a transaction to take place but alert the authorities
that it is involuntary.

Computer security Biometrics security biometric, Biometrics security, Biometrics-security, biometric_authentication, biometric_security, biometric_systems, Cryptography, Encryption, mooted