Biometrics and Ageing: Social and Ethical Considerations

Such at least is the challenge from the purely technical perspective. But reflection upon wider societal and ethical considerations necessarily broadens our view. Ageing and the role of older people in society raise difficult questions concerning inclusion, discrimination, inter-generational justice, and so forth. Biometrics cannot stand apart from those issues. There is firstly an ethical imperative to ensure that technological developments do not aggravate or reinforce existing problems. On the face of it, biometrics does not fare well here. For instance, one existing problem is that older people are, in various ways, subject to exclusion and discrimination in our society. Hence that biometrics identifies older people as ‘problematic’—even if this is simply a façon de parler—is unfortunate and likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the problem. A second, more pragmatic, imperative is imposed by the fact that society is rapidly ageing. Between 2004 and 2050, the proportion of the total population aged 65 years or older will grow by a massive 77 percent [19]; and while median age (globally) in 2000 was only 26, it is predicted to be 44 by the year 2100 [20]. Older people constitute the fastest-growing demographic; if biometrics is to be at the forefront of mass identification schemes in the future, it must be able to efficiently identify them. Failure to meet this challenge will render biometrics societally and ethically unacceptable, and practically and economically unviable.