Addressing biometrics security and privacy related challenges in China

Abstract

There has been significant advancement improvement in the capabilities of biometrics and data protection technologies in last decade. The significant reduction in cost, improvements in speed and accuracy has resulted in increased deployment of such technologies in day-to-day business and public utilities. The increasing use of biometrics and data protection technologies has also raised concern on the unethical use of personal information. There are increasing number of incidents and concerns in the public over the infringement of personal privacy in China. This paper has investigated such emerging privacy related concerns in the deployment of biometrics and data protection technologies in China. This paper also includes a study on public attitudes toward such technologies and attempts to make comparison with the same in the difference with such emerging concerns in other developed countries. This paper has developed an online survey to ascertain people's understanding on the various aspects of privacy and thus willingness to tradeoff with the benefits of increased security. The online survey was conducted in February – March 2012 and revealed great deal of information from the 305 Hong Kong people. We have attempted to analyze the survey results which illustrate interesting findings on the use of CCTV, biometrics technologies, social networking, disclosure of personal information and recent (2012) privacy policy adjustments in popular websites.