Blog de Philippe Aigrain's blog

J’ai oublié le plus important d’hier : l’exposé de Tim Hubbard sur la tension dans le champ biomédical entre protection des données personnelles et bénéfices pour la santé publique du caractère public des données. Il propose des solutions originales, dont il dit lui-même qu’elles sont les meilleurs compromis imparfaits auxquels on peut penser aujourd’hui. Elles reposent sur des moyens techniques et organisationnels (maintien de la distribution des données, utilisation de serveurs de confiance, non-transmission des données brutes). Elles méritent d’être explorées. Je lui demande de prendre en compte les situations extrêmes (gouvernements totalitaires, guerres) dans les critères d’évaluation.
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My post in only available in French

My post is not available in English, and it is very hard to translate in English. For instance dispositif means at the same time “device”, “mechanism”, “action plan (in a military context)”, “pronouncement” (in a judicial context). You can read the French version

My post is not available in English, you can read the French version

Sorry, this text is not available in English, you can read the French version.

Sciences Citoyennes, a French NGO organizes a series of conferences-debates under the heading of Dialogues Sciences-Planète. One of these dialogues was on the subject of The securized man: Human, Surhuman, Transhuman (synthesis in French). One of the speakers, Gérard Dubey, analysed biometric technology. He wondered why, up to now, the deployment of biometry has been socially accepted except in small circles. He proposed the following explanation: the search for surveillance and security of governments and organizations would be met by a doubt of individuals on their identity. Individuals would thus find the biometric “certainty” reinsuring. He explained the emergence of a doubt on identity by the generalization of distant exchanges and the informationalization of society. The invocation of a role of informationalization is enlightening and could also help us understand other forms of going back to more “certain” identity such as regression to mythical origins or religious dogmatism. But the role of informationalization is more complex than claimed by Gérard Dubey. Informationalization puts identity at doubt only when individuals are deprived from the possibility to control its usage, when they are carried away by a flow of information, dispossessed of the resources of creation and action, unable to combine mediations and face-to-face relationships, physical and information activities. In brief, when they are instrumentalized in the information world and not producers of this world. In the opposite situation, use of information and communication technology on the contrary supports identities whose complexity, far from being a source of anxiety, is reinsuring. So, in order to get a political movement for the rejection of massively applicable biometry, “all” we need is a greater number of people becoming actors of the informationalization and developing an art of living with it.

“Facultatif” sous pression ou obligatoire, payé par l’Etat ou à charge des demandeurs, restreint aux femmes ou appliqué aux hommes, soumis à décision de justice ou appliqué par des services, l’amendement rendant possible les tests ADN pour vérifier la filiation biologique lors de demandes de regroupement familial reste ce qu’il est. Il traite ceux qui ne demandent que l’application d’un droit fondamental en bafouant un autre droit fondamental et leur applique des dispositions dont quoi qu’on en dise, on n’accepterait jamais (pour l’instant ?) qu’elles s’appliquent aux européens. Les sénateurs ont ce soir une occasion de prouver qu’ils servent à quelque chose. Ils ne peuvent se défausser de leurs responsabilités sur le Conseil constitutionnel. En effet, des décisions récentes font craindre que le Conseil constitutionnel ne juge ici que la conformité à la lettre de la constitution et non à son esprit, ouvrant ainsi la porte à tous les contournements. Ces contournements deviennent même explicites, et quand un texte est rejeté à juste titre par le Conseil constitutionnel, nos nouveaux ingénieurs de barbarie civilisée se contentent de dire “il va falloir formuler ça autrement”. Dans le cas présent, Monsieur Hortefeux a anticipé en reformulant dès à présent. Je ne préjuge pas de si le Conseil constitutionnel acceptera cette manipulation, mais mieux vaut n’en pas courir le risque. S’il vous plait, mesdames et messieurs les sénateurs, soyez à la hauteur de votre responsabilité. Nous vous regardons.

An update at the occasion of the Evry trial

Since my first entry on this subject, a true debate has started to develop in France on massively applicable biometry. It first happened during a public consultation on the government project INES to include automatically readable biometric information in the ID card and driving license (in addition to the passport). A courageous opposition by the Ligue des droits de l’homme (Human Rights League) and 4 formers presidents of the CNIL (Committee for Informatics and Freedom) led the government to amend the project. However the new project is still very dangerous (the biometric IDs become facultative, which will lead to 2 classes of citizens, the suspect ones without biometric ID and the “good” ones who have it). A new debate has arisen at the occasion of the trial of a number of philosophy students accused of destroying biometrical reading equipment used to control access to a high school restaurant (they state that they did not personnally participate in the destruction, just to the protest action, but do stand for its legitimacy). Thumbs up to Louis Joinet who was the first President of CNIL and is one the key experts on Human Rights issues in the UN, for testifying in support to the students and highlighting that the biometry industry lobby has explicitly targetted children for applications aimed at creating an acceptance of biometrical surveillenace and traceability.

In the past few years, biometric identification devices have been forced on us at an incredibly fast pace. After 9/11, it is almost as if the brain synapses of decision makers within governments had been hijacked. The most basic care for freedom has evaded them, with the exception of limited privacy issues circles. The US government is today acquiring biometrical information on any visitor that steps in a the country, and in one year, it will be impossible for people without strong biometrical information (f.i. iris scans) included in their passport to step in without visa in the US. European governments accept eagerly to include such data in their passports or ID cards. The new situation is without precedent. In the past, biometry existed for instance in the form of fingerprints. However the practical use of biometry did not allow for quick, efficient and massive screening of population, and the falsification of this information remained relatively easy. Thanks to these 2 aspects, millions of people has escaped mass extermination or segregation by using fake identiiities. The probability of one advanced technology country to fall under a totalitarian regime during the next 50 years is unknown but it can be deemed to be high. So please, let’s stop this madness. Don’t believe others will do it: they are just sitting like yourself, thinking that it can’t be true, someone will stop it.