By Will Sturgeon, 31 October 2006 15:00
NEWS
Although opposition to biometrics - the authentication of the individual based on factors such as iris or fingerprint recognition - remains strong, support appears to be growing as long as there is a tangible benefit for the average man and woman on the street.
And perhaps the most average activity of all - going into the local pub for a pint is one area where biometrics could find a more welcoming constituency, according to the results of a silicon.com poll.
While many people remain opposed to large scale biometric schemes such as those being proposed to underpin new passports and ID cards, 40 per cent of voters in a silicon.com poll said they would be prepared to register their fingerprints with a pub scheme, such as that trialled in Yeovil if it meant they would be safer.
Troublemakers would be barred from the pubs and their fingerprints retained on the system to prevent them entering any pub registered with the scheme.
Want to know more?
Read silicon.com's A to Z of biometrics.
And that seems like good news to 40 per cent of readers who took the silicon.com poll.
However, although it would appear support for biometrics is growing, the anti- lobby is still strongly opposed. While 31 per cent of respondents said they don't think a pint is really worth the hassle, 29 per cent said they would consider moving away from any town which launched such a scheme.
The poll was taken by more than 450 readers over the past four days.
Comments
There is 1 comment. Join the discussion
1. Graham Coles
A very odd conclusion to draw.
By my reckoning, if only 40% of people would be prepared to use a pub with biometrics, that means 60%, clearly a notable majority would not.
Which government spin department were commissioned to produce this conclusion?
If pubs face a 60% loss in trade, I wouldn't have exactly called this 'warming' to the use of biometrics, far from it; I'd say that's still rather chilly.
If this is supposed to show support for biometrics 'where there is a tangible benefit' then something as pointless as ID cards (where there is practically no useful benefit at all and a massive expenditure) must have support running at around the 0.1% level.