Biometrics are playing midwife to one of the most significant bouts of modernization and institutional development of the Information Age.
Imagine living in a democracy and having no real idea of how many people reside in your country or what proportion of the people residing within the national borders should be considered citizens.
Only the most organized and powerful of ancient civilizations were capable of conducting a census.
The democracies that reached high levels of development during the industrial revolution adopted regular censuses and built expensive, labor-intensive bureaucracies in order to get a good idea of the demographics of the country.
In the United States, the Selective Service System identifying all military-aged males was developed in 1917; the Social Security Administration issued its first Social Security Number in 1936.
Biometrics offer many of the world's countries the opportunity to gather basic identity management data crucial to the function of a modern state at a lower cost than that paid by the powers of the Industrial Age.
This phenomenon is similar to the telecommunications revolution that allowed large portions of Africa to skip the expensive and labor intensive technology of the copper wire telephone network in favor of a cellular system.
Countries that are adopting biometric ID management systems are finding new choices about how to manage their affairs.
Malaysia is a providing an example lately. Having adopted border biometrics, they find themselves with more choices about how to deal with the underground labor market.
6P programme starts on July 11 (Since Delayed)
Amnesty after legal foreign workers in biometric system
No choice for illegals this time
Malaysia defers amnesty plan for illegal labour
The challenges are great. Biometrics place solutions within the grasp of many.
