When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity

Magnet, Shoshana Amielle

ISBN 10: 0822351234 / ISBN 13: 9780822351238

Published by Duke University Press Books, 2011

About this Item

Good - Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name - GOOD Standard-sized.

Seller Inventory # M0822351234Z3

Bibliographic Details

• Title: When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822351234
• ISBN 13: 9780822351238
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

From digital fingerprinting to iris and retina recognition, biometric identification systems are a multibillion dollar industry and an integral part of post-9/11 national security strategy. Yet these technologies often fail to work. The scientific literature on their accuracy and reliability documents widespread and frequent technical malfunction. Shoshana Amielle Magnet argues that these systems fail so often because rendering bodies in biometric code falsely assumes that people’s bodies are the same and that individual bodies are stable, or unchanging, over time. By focusing on the moments when biometrics fail, Magnet shows that the technologies work differently, and fail to function more often, on women, people of color, and people with disabilities. Her assessment emphasizes the state’s use of biometrics to control and classify vulnerable and marginalized populations—including prisoners, welfare recipients, immigrants, and refugees—and to track individuals beyond the nation’s territorial boundaries. When Biometrics Fail is a timely, important contribution to thinking about the security state, surveillance, identity, technology, and human rights.

About the Author

Shoshana Amielle Magnet is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Women’s Studies and the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. She is a co-editor (with Kelly Gates) of The New Media of Surveillance.