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A tattoo is not a face. Ethical aspects of tattoo-based biometrics

Fabio Bacchini (Laboratory of Applied Epistemology, DADU, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy and Logos Research Group in Analytic Philosophy, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, España and SCM, Universitat de Girona, Girona, España)
Ludovica Lorusso (Department of Political Science, Communication, Engineering and Information Technologies, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy and SCM, Universitat de Girona, Girona, España)

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society

ISSN: 1477-996X

Article publication date: 6 December 2017

Issue publication date: 15 May 2018

330

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the ethical and social issues of tattoo recognition technology (TRT) and tattoo similarity detection technology (TSDT), which are expected to be increasingly used by state and local police departments and law enforcement agencies.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper investigates the new ethical concerns raised by tattoo-based biometrics on a comparative basis with face-recognition biometrics.

Findings

TRT raises much more ethically sensitive issues than face recognition, because tattoos are meaningful biometric traits, and tattoo identification is tantamount to the identification of many more personal features that normally would have remained invisible. TSDT’s assumption that classifying people in virtue of their visible features is useful to foretell their attitudes and behaviours is dangerously similar to racist thought.

Practical implications

The findings hope to promote an active debate on the ethical and social aspects of tattoo-based biometrics before it is intensely implemented by law enforcement agencies.

Social implications

Tattooed individuals – inasmuch as they are more controlled and monitored – are negatively discriminated in comparison to un-tattooed individuals. As tattooing is not uniformly distributed among population, many demographic groups like African–Americans will be overrepresented in tattoos databases used by TRT and TSDT, thus being affected by disproportionately higher risk to be found as a match for a given suspect.

Originality/value

TRT and TSDT represent one of the new frontiers of biometrics. The ethical and social issues raised by TRT and TSDT are currently unexplored.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Massimo Tistarelli for his generous support. Thanks also go to Josep Lluis de la Rosa i Esteva and his research group of the University of Girona who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted our work. This work has been fully supported by the IDENTITY Project - Computer Vision Enabled Multimedia Forensics and People Identification, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015, n. 690907.

Citation

Bacchini, F. and Lorusso, L. (2018), "A tattoo is not a face. Ethical aspects of tattoo-based biometrics", Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 110-122. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-05-2017-0029

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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