Biometrics and Our Privacy Future

Biometrics is the measurement and analysis of physical or behavioral characteristics of a person, such as their face, fingerprint, voice, or conduct as a means of verifying identity. Biometrics-based applications can offer secure and user-friendly identity management and verification solutions. However, biometrics pose a special threat to personal privacy because they use characteristics intrinsic to you that can never be changed. Once a biometric is compromised, it can be impossible to regain anonymity from those willing to misuse it.

Facial identification systems are increasingly being adopted by governments, big tech, and banks. In the United States the legal rules protecting individuals from abuse of these technologies are few and far between. However, recent legislative developments indicate momentum may be building for significant privacy legislation both at the state and national level. Come out to Legal Hackers on Wednesday 29 May to hear biometrics policy analyst, Christopher Anastasio, and privacy attorney, Razvan Miutescu, discuss the present and future state of biometrics and privacy in the United States.

Topics will include:

California Consumer Privacy Act
Proposed Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act of 2019
Litigation concerning the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act
Other state and federal legislation
Related biometrics research

Christopher Anastasio is a consultant for Ideal Innovations Incorporated in Arlington, VA. Chris has spent the past fifteen years working in the Department of Defense (DoD) biometrics field, primarily as a policy analyst, strategic planning consultant, and acquisition strategist, including as senior biometrics policy analyst at the DoD Biometrics Task Force. https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopheranastasio/

Razvan “Raz” Miutescu is a business, technology, and information governance attorney at Whiteford Taylor Preston LLP in Baltimore. His practice focuses on privacy and data security, information technology transactions and licensing, intellectual property, and data management, including data broker transactions, cloud services, distributed ledgers + blockchain, and related regulatory and compliance matters. https://www.linkedin.com/in/razvan-miutescu-83b44912/

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