IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 59

collaborations with Kate Crawford at New York University's AI Now Institute, which produced both the ImageNet
Roulette as well as the accompanying essay " Excavating
AI: The Politics of Images in Machine Learning Training
Sets " [23]. Such works activate Brian Holmes's assertion that effective art can leverage the chaotic selforganization of local communities into a questioning
of the deterministically-inclined " consistency " of governmentality while providing roadmaps towards collective and adaptive modes to remake biopolitical
imaginaries such that they reflect relational lived and
affective experiences [24].
This public education extends most urgently to
designers and programmers of biometric software and
hardware. While principles encapsulated by Privacy By
Design are very worthwhile,9 mechanisms like the BAE
goes well beyond questions of individual privacy and
into applications that divide and hierarchize whole populations and the resources those populations are given
access to. As such, more attention must be paid to the
questions that such hardware and software are answering: if the questions revolve around citizenship, then
designers and users must be extra conscious of the
potential uses of such technologies and how a tool like
FRS can be employed. Armed with a critical biometric
consciousness, a general public, designers, programmers, and policy regulators can look at instances like
the BAE and identify how the use of its FRS hinges on
the politically subjective categories of " risks " and
" threats " and how they are coded and sorted as citizen
or non-citizen.
Viewed from this perspective, tracking FRS as a
tactical tool within larger strategies of national security sheds light on potentially dangerous underlying
political rationales and vocabularies, making such
apparatuses transparent and accountable. In a future
of increasing national and transitional mobility, exasperated by climate catastrophe, global pandemics,
and global civil war, such attention and clarity is
urgently needed.

Author Information
Aaron Tucker is a Ph.D. student at York University in Cinema and Media Studies, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

References
[1] " Your face is your boarding pass: JetBlue introduces its first
integrated biometric self-boarding gate at New York's John F. Ken-

9

Further information about the principles of Privacy by Design as advocated by Ann Cavoukian can be found at Ryerson University's repository of
papers at https://www.ryerson.ca/pbdce/papers/ (accessed Apr. 17,l 2020).

DECEMBER 2020

∕

nedy International Airport, " jetblue.com, para. 1, Nov. 28, 2019;
http://mediaroom.jetblue.com/investor-relations/press-releases/
2018/11-15-2018-184045420, accessed Aug. 8, 2019.
[2] " American's first-ever biometric boarding program arrives at
LAX, " aa.com, . para. 2, Dec. 5, 2018; http://news.aa.com/news/
news-details/2018/Americans-First-Ever-Biometric-Boarding-Program
-Arrives-at-LAX/default.aspx. Accessed 8 April 2020.
[3] Fiscal Year 2018: Entry/Exit Overstay Report. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, p. 4; https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/
files/publications/19_0417_fy18-entry-and-exit-overstay-report.pdf,
accessed Apr. 8, 2020.
[4] N. Rose and C. Novas, " Biological citizenship, " Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological
Problems, 2005, p. 439.
[5] B. Ajana, Governing Through Biometrics. Palgrave Macmillan,
2013, p. 29.
[6] P. Jakhar. " Coronavirus: China's tech fights back, " BBC; https://
www.bbc.com/newst/technology-51717164, accessed Apr. 2020.
[7] D. Lyons, Surveillance After September 11. Polity, 2003, p. 4.
[8] E. Balibar, Politics and the Other Scene. Verso, 2002, p. 76.
[9] " Photos. " U.S. Embassy and Consulates in India. https://
in.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/passports/photos/. accessed
Aug. 8, 2019.
[10] " TSA biometrics roadmap for aviation security and the passenger experience, " Transportation Security Administration, p. 5,
Sept. 2018; https://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/tsa_biometrics
_roadmap.pdf, accessed Aug. 8, 2019.
[11] FERET database; https://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/image-group/
color-feret-database, accessed Aug. 8, 2019.
[12] " Office of Biometric Identity Management, " U.S. Department of
Homeland Security; https://www.dhs.gov/obim, accessed Aug. 8,
2019.
[13] M. Foucault, " Governmentality, " in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality: With Two Lectures by and an Interview
with Michel Foucault. G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller, Eds.
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 87-103.
[14] M. Foucault, M. Senellart, and A.I. Davidson. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1977-1978.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 265.
[15] G. Agamben. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life.
Stanford Univ. Press, 1998, pp. 3-12.
[16] D. Bigo, " Security, exception, ban and surveillance, " in Theorizing Surveillance. Willan, 2006, pp. 60-82.
[17] M. Foucault, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975-1976. Picador, 1997.
[18] G. Agamben, " From the State of Control to a Praxis of Destituent Power " (author's italics), para.17; https://theanarchistlibrary.org/
library/giorgio-agamben-from-the-state-of-control-to-a-praxis-of
-destituent-power, accessed Aug. 9, 2019.
[19] P. Mozur. " One month, 500,000 face scans: How China is
using A.I. to profile a minority, " The New York Times, Apr. 14,
2019; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china
-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html, accessed Aug.
9, 2019.
[20] N. S. Guliani. " Amazon met with ICE officials to market its
facial recognition product, " ACLU, Oct. 24, 2018; https://www.aclu
.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazon-met
-ice-officials-market-its-facial, accessed Aug. 9, 2019.
[21] S. Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness.
Duke Univ. Press, 2015, p. 91.
[22] S. L. Cheang, 3x3x6, Mixed Media Installation; http://www
.taiwaninvenice.org/2019/, accessed Apr. 17, 2020.
[23] K. Carford and T. Paglen. " Excavating AI: The politics of images in machine learning training sets; " https://www.excavating.ai/,
accessed Apr. 17, 2020.
[24] B. Holmes. " Swarmachine: Activist media tomorrow, " Third Text,
pp. 527-533, 2008.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

59

http://www.jetblue.com http://mediaroom.jetblue.com/investor-relations/press-releases/ http://www.aa.com http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2018/Americans-First-Ever-Biometric-Boarding-Program-Arrives-at-LAX/default.aspx http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2018/Americans-First-Ever-Biometric-Boarding-Program-Arrives-at-LAX/default.aspx http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2018/Americans-First-Ever-Biometric-Boarding-Program-Arrives-at-LAX/default.aspx https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_0417_fy18-entry-and-exit-overstay-report.pdf https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_0417_fy18-entry-and-exit-overstay-report.pdf https://www.bbc.com/newst/technology-51717164 https://www.bbc.com/newst/technology-51717164 https://in.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/passports/photos/ https://in.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/passports/photos/ https://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/tsa_biometrics_roadmap.pdf https://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/tsa_biometrics_roadmap.pdf https://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/image-group/color-feret-database https://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/image-group/color-feret-database https://www.dhs.gov/obim https://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/library/giorgio-agamben-from-the-state-of-control-to-a-praxis-of-destituent-power https://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/library/giorgio-agamben-from-the-state-of-control-to-a-praxis-of-destituent-power https://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/library/giorgio-agamben-from-the-state-of-control-to-a-praxis-of-destituent-power https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazon-met-ice-officials-market-its-facial https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazon-met-ice-officials-market-its-facial https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazon-met-ice-officials-market-its-facial http://www.taiwaninvenice.org/2019/ http://www.taiwaninvenice.org/2019/ https://www.excavating.ai/ https://www.ryerson.ca/pbdce/papers/

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020