In some areas of the world, payment systems that require palm scanning or face scanning are already being tested.  We have entered an era where biometric security is being hailed as the “solution” to the antiquated security methods of the past.  We are being promised that the constant problems that hackers are causing with our credit cards, bank accounts, ATM machines and Internet passwords will all go away once we switch over to biometric identification.  And without a doubt, we have some massive security problems that need to be addressed.  But do you really want a machine to read your face or your hand before you are able to buy anything, sell anything or log on to the Internet?  Do you really want “the system” to be able to know where you are, what you are buying and what you are doing at virtually all times?  Biometric security systems are being promoted as “cool” and “cutting edge”, but there is also potentially a very dark side to them that should not be ignored.
 
Almost everyone would like to make their identities more secure.  Nobody actually wants their bank accounts compromised or their Internet passwords stolen.  But there is a price to be paid for adopting biometric identification.  Your face or your hand will be used to continually monitor and track everything that you do and everywhere that you go. 
 
For now, biometric security is not being forced on people.  If you want to avoid it, you can. But eventually, once it has been adopted on a widespread basis, banks and government agencies will start requiring it. And it is easy to imagine a day when none of us will any longer be able to buy or sell anything without submitting to biometric identification.  In fact, an “alternative payment method” involving hand scanning is already being tested in southern Sweden

But before biometric identification is widely used for payment systems, we will probably see it implemented in a whole bunch of other ways first.  For instance, biometric scanners are already being used in dining halls on collage campuses all across America.

Young people tend to be less alarmed by this technology, and so that is where it is being pushed.  If you can believe it, biometric scanners are even going to be used at Six Flags amusement park this summer.

Incredibly, biometric identification is even being used in Africa to keep track of who is being vaccinated…In fact, some biometric solutions are helping solve vaccine delivery issues in Africa which has been hampered by ineffective tracking and reporting. Today, a biometric vaccination registry helps to ensure that millions of young children receive the vaccine that is needed to save their lives. And by knowing “who” has been vaccinated, these precious life-saving drugs are not wasted by over-vaccinating some and missing others entirely.

This technology is going to keep spreading, and it is going to become harder and harder to avoid it.  And it is easy to imagine what a tyrannical government could do with this kind of technology.  If it wanted to, it could use it to literally track the movements and behavior of everyone.
 
We are already starting to see the establishment of massive biometric databases.  One of these is the FBI’s facial recognition database that is a part of their “Next Generation Identification” program.  It is being projected that the FBI will have compiled 52 million of our “face images” by the year 2015.  Given enough time, eventually I am sure that they would have all of our faces in their computers.
 
And one day, this kind of technology will likely be so pervasive that you won’t be able to open a bank account, get a credit card or even buy anything without having either your hand or your face scanned first.