With the advent of advanced technologies, including big data, Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing, biometric technologies enter in a whole new era. Great limitations regarding their applicability, robustness, effectiveness and efficiency can now be overcome bringing biometric systems much closer to large-scale deployment and application. Meanwhile, the major social issues related to biometrics stem from the irrevocable tight link between an individual's biometric traits and informational trails of this person, either in the form of records or within the biometric traits themselves, which raise serious debate and cause important restrictions in the realization of their full potential. This chapter will present Information and Communications Technology (ICT) developments, such as cloud computing, IoT and big data, which drive the way for the large-scale operation of robust biometric systems, as well as real world examples of biometric solutions. Moreover, it will analyse the privacy and ethical concerns and the societal implications of the introduction of biometrics systems for society as a whole and individually for citizens.

Chapter Contents:

• 15.1 Introduction
• 15.2 The ICT landscape for biometric systems
• 15.2.1 Internet of Things
• 15.2.2 Cloud infrastructures for biometrics
• 15.3 The new implementation potential
• 15.4 Evolution of biometric systems
• 15.4.1 Enabling advanced privacy
• 15.4.2 Ubiquitous biometrics
• 15.4.3 Indian Unique ID project: a large-scale implementation example
• 15.5 The societal implications
• 15.5.1 Biometric data collection
• 15.5.2 Biometrics in social media
• 15.5.3 Other secondary uses of biometric data
• 15.5.4 Other concerns
• 15.6 Conclusions
• References

Inspec keywords: Big Data; security of data; Internet of Things; biometrics (access control); cloud computing; data privacy

Other keywords: information and communications technology; biometric technologies; ICT; societal implications; cloud computing; multidisciplinary analysis; IoT; biometric systems; Internet of Things; ethical concerns; Big Data; privacy concerns

Subjects: Data security; Mobile, ubiquitous and pervasive computing; Internet software