Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 183- On iris registration, only 90% of non-disabled participants could enrol, thoughthe results were 61% for disabled participants. Asian and White participants hadhigher success rates than Black participants. A divergence also occurredbetween participants aged under 60 who had a higher success rate thanparticipants aged over 60.- On fingerprint enrolment, nearly 100% of non-disabled participants could enrol,but only 96% of disabled participants. Reasons for failing to enrol included a‘false match’ with fingerprints obtained earlier in the Trial. Surprising resultsincluded that 2% of all Black participants could not be fingerprinted, while 45%of Black participants required multiple attempts at enrolment (while 30% onaverage required multiple attempts).In total, this means that 0.62% of the disabled participants could not be registered at all.This translated into over 850,000 UK citizens who would be excluded from anidentification system based on these results.Verification ResultsWhen individuals’ biometrics were verified against the database, the results were muchmore problematic.- On face recognition, the verification rate was 69% for the non-disabled, and48% for disabled participants. Participants under the age of 60 had a betterverification rate than those over 60. Changes in appearance caused failures, asdid lighting problems. Black participants encountered more difficulties inregistration: at one location 78% of Black participants failed to verify, while atanother the error rate was 26%.- On iris verification, the verification rate was 96% for non-disabled, though fordisabled participants it was 91%. This again worked better for youngerparticipants than for older ones, as older individuals were almost five times morelikely to fail than those aged 18-24 (5.37% compared to 1.19%).- On fingerprint verification, 81% of non-disabled participants were verified,while the rate was 80% for disabled participants. Again, younger users weremore successful than older users, with sometimes severe differences. It wasfound that frequently the devices did not record sufficient detail from thefingers.The problems here are many and complex. The report concludes only that the readerswere insufficient and the lighting problematic.Attitudes Towards BiometricsOn the usability issue, iris-scanning comes off worst for time taken, positioning, and theoverall experience. Many felt criminalised by the taking of fingerprints, and somethought it was overly intrusive. 457Prior to the trial subgroups ‘18-34yr olds’, ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’, ‘OtherReligion’ showed much more concern compared with the average scores. The general457 Ibid, p.106.