Leader: Biometrics - good or bad?

It's always interesting to see where technologies are embraced by the mass market - and where they inspire fear and dread.

Often even the same technology - biometrics, say - is accepted in one application and not in another.

Airport security, for instance, is shaping up to be one area where biometrics are welcomed.

This should be no real surprise for anyone who's been through airport security in the past five years. Long queues, extensive searches of your person and your bags, confiscation of your water bottle - this is what we all experience today.

So the idea that we could offer up our irises or fingertips for a quick scan and be on our way - or even something close to that - sounds pretty appealing.

Our globetrotting blogger Peter Cochrane has long called for technology to speed up and improve the quality of airport security.

And new research shows the general public in the UK and the US are in favour of the use of biometrics - not just in airports but also by banks, credit card companies, healthcare providers and the government.

The key here is that biometrics at airports promise to make our lives easier and presumably safer - by making the security process more consistent and smarter. It's not just about reducing hassle. It's about weighing up how worthwhile any hassle is.

So biometric airport security appears to be getting the thumbs-up - it's already been rolled out at airports in Birmingham, London and Manchester. And across the pond, the US has been scanning the irises of visitors to the country for some time.

Yet talk about biometrics being used to evaluate candidates in a job interview or on an ID card and many - even some who support their use in airports - will object.

That's because as we all should know by now acceptance of technology is about what it can do for us - or at least what we perceive it can do for us - in relation to the perceived and real risks.

There is no such thing as technology that is objectively 'good' or 'bad'.

The next time someone asks "how do you feel about biometrics?", we bet the only sensible answer is "that depends... ".

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