Anonymity, Obscurity, and Technology: Reconsidering Privacy in the Age of Biometrics
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ANONYMITY, OBSCURITY, AND TECHNOLOGY: RECONSIDERING PRIVACY IN THE AGE OF BIOMETRICS JONATHAN TURLEY ABSTRACT For decades, cinematic and literary works have explored worlds without privacy: fishbowl societies with continual, omnipresent surveillance. For those worried about a post-privacy world, facial recognition technology and other biometric technology could well be the expanding portal to that dystopia. These technologies are rapidly transforming a society predicated on privacy into a diaphanous society where identity and transparency are defining elements. Biometric technology is perfectly suited to evade current privacy protections and doctrines because it presents new challenges to the existing legal framework protecting privacy. The greatest threat of this technological shift is to democratic activities—the very reason that countries such as China have invested so heavily into biometric surveillance systems. This Article explores how our traditional privacy notions fit into a new age of biometrics. It seeks to frame the debate on what values society’s notions of privacy protect, and how to protect them. After exploring prior approaches and definitions to privacy, it proposes a shift from an emphasis on anonymity to a focus on obscurity. The truth is that we now live in a “nonymous” world where our movements and associations will be made increasingly transparent. This Article concludes by recommending a comprehensive approach to biometric technology that would obscure increasingly available images and data while recasting privacy protections to fit a new and unfolding biometric reality. This obscurity will allow participation in society to continue unimpeded by the chilling effects created by the new technology. Without it, our democratic society will never be the same. J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law, The George Washington University Law School. I wish to thank The George Washington University Law School for the grants supporting the underlying research for this Article. I want to thank the participants of past hearings and conferences where this research was presented including the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice (July 2020), the CogX Conference of the United Kingdom’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) (June 2020), and the AFCEA International Federal Identity Forum (Sept. 2019). I would also like to thank Tovah LaDier, James Loudermilk, and the other experts in this industry who generously offered insights on this Article. I also want to thank Nicholas Contarino for his research assistance. 2179 2180 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 100:2179 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 2181 I. PARADIGM SHIFTS IN PRIVACY FROM EAVESDROPPING TO BIOMETRICS ...................................................................................... 2198 A. The Eavesdropping Period ........................................................ 2198 B. The Interception Period ............................................................. 2200 C. The Biometric Period ................................................................ 2203 1. Early Biometric Identification ............................................. 2203 2. The Transformative Capacity of Biometric Technology ..... 2207 II. BIOMETRIC PRIVACY UNDER PREBIOMETRIC RATIONALES .............. 2212 A. The Public Versus Private Dynamic .......................................... 2213 B. The Decisional Versus Informational Dynamic ........................ 2215 C. The Privacy Versus Technology Dynamic ................................. 2217 III. ANONYMITY AND DEMOCRACY: A CASE FOR BIOMETRIC PRIVACY AS A CONDITION FOR PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRATIC ACTION .............................................................................................. 2220 A. The Normative Model ................................................................ 2220 B. The Criminal Justice Model ...................................................... 2223 C. A Democratic Model .................................................................. 2226 1. Anonymity and Observation in Human Conduct ................ 2229 2. Anonymity as a Protected Right .......................................... 2232 IV. RECOGNIZING OBSCURITY AND PROTECTING BIOMETRIC PRIVACY IN A NONYMOUS WORLD ................................................... 2241 A. Anonymity Through Obscurity: Restoring Expectations of Public Privacy ....................................................................... 2241 B. Common-Law Privacy and Constitutional Norms as Limitations on Transparency-Forcing Technology ................... 2246 C. Codifying a Bounded Rationality of Public Privacy .................. 2254 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 2259 2020] ANONYMITY, OBSCURITY & TECHNOLOGY 2181 “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” —George Orwell, 19841 INTRODUCTION From 19842 and Fahrenheit 4513 to The Minority Report4 and Total Recall,5 dystopian futures all have a common feature: continual, omnipresent surveillance of every citizen. The phobia of living in a fishbowl society is a shared phobia of all free people. It is also a growing reality for those living with increasingly less freedom in nations such as China. The technology that was merely a fiction when George Orwell penned 1984 now exists to make his dystopian vision a reality. That technology—and thus that future—has arrived with recent breakthroughs in biometric technology, including facial recognition technology (“FRT”). For many people, the popular release of an FRT function in Apple’s iPhone was their first use of a biometric program, and it brought the same thrilling experience as the first encounter with the telephone or television. People are now accustomed to hearing businesses announce that voice recognition will be used during telephone calls with customers. Automatic entries based on facial recognition are being explored at airports, movie theaters, and other businesses. In August 2019, Google announced that its 1.7 billion Android users would soon be using biometric identity authentication.6 The move reflects a view that biometrics can reduce identity theft and password violations, an effort led in part by the industry group Fast 1 GEORGE ORWELL, 1984, at 6-7 (Plume 1983) (1949). 2 Id. 3 RAY BRADBURY, FAHRENHEIT 451, at 138 (1953) (“‘Police suggest entire population in the Elm Terrace area do as follows: Everyone in every house in every street open a front or rear door or look from the windows. The fugitive cannot escape if everyone in the next minute looks from his house. Ready!’ Of course! Why hadn’t they done it before! Why, in all the years, hadn’t this game been tried! Everyone up, everyone out! He couldn’t be missed!”). 4 MINORITY REPORT (Twentieth Century Fox & Dreamworks Pictures 2002). Walking through a mall, Chief John Anderton, played by actor Tom Cruise, has his eyes scanned by advertisements in order to target his interests. Later in the movie, Anderton’s eyes are surgically replaced in order to avoid detection from police drones and their retinal scanners. 5 TOTAL RECALL (Carolco Pictures 1990). Prior to taking a space bridge to the planet Mars, Douglas Quaid, played by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, proceeds through a full body X-ray scanning machine to detect contraband. 6 Davey Winder, Google Confirms Password Replacement for 1.7 Billion Android Users, FORBES (Aug. 13, 2019, 1:09 AM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2019/08/13 /google-confirms-password-replacement-for-17-billion-android-users-starting- now/#660291221000 [https://perma.cc/A9PH-QSD5]. 2182 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 100:2179 Identity Online (“FIDO”).7 There are other positive uses of biometrics, including home security,8 biometric guns that only work with a designated owner,9 and biometric pet identification.10 By 2023 biometrics are expected to authenticate $2 trillion in commercial transactions.11 These “frictionless” transactions include the rising use of biometric wallets that are replacing credit cards around the world.12 The new technology is viewed as liberating for a market hampered by security threats. Just as government surveillance can have a chilling effect on speech and associations, the vulnerability of online transactions and files to 7 FIDO seeks to incorporate logins with biometric security. FIDO Certification Programs: Introducing New Biometric Component Certification, Authenticator Levels and Certified Companies, FIDO ALLIANCE (Sept. 6, 2018), https://fidoalliance.org/fido-certification- programs-introducing-new-biometric-component-certification-authenticator-levels-and- certified-companies/ [https://perma.cc/7GHD-MU3E]. 8 See Apri Siswanto, Norliza Katuk & Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud, Biometric Fingerprint Architecture for Home Security System, 3 INNOVATION & ANALYTICS CONF. & EXHIBITION 137, 138-41 (2016). 9 Biometric or “smart” guns could radically reduce the incidence of child shootings in homes. See Ashley Luthern, Ryan J. Foley & Nick Penzenstadler, Nationally,