The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) put out a Request for Information (RFI) on uses of biometric technologies in the public and private sector.
Concerns are growing with the increasing number of applications and domains using biometric information to determine identification or inference of emotion, disposition, character, or intent. As a result, OSTP is requesting input from interested parties past deployments, proposals, pilots, or trials, and current use of biometric technologies for the aforementioned purposes. In this case, a “biometric technology” is broadly referred to as a system that uses biometric information for the purpose of recognition or inference.
Community responses will be used to understand the current landscape of biometric technologies including the extent and variety of these technologies, the domains in which these technologies are used, the entities making use of them, current principles, practices or policies governing their use and the stakeholders that have the potential to be impacted by their use or regulation. Participants may provide information on one or more of the following topics:
- Descriptions of use of biometric information for recognition and inference
- Procedures for and results of data-driven and scientific validation of biometric technologies
- Security considerations associated with a particular biometric technology
- Exhibited and potential harms of a particular biometric technology
- Exhibited and potential benefits of a particular biometric technology
- Governance programs, practices or procedures applicable to the context, scope, and data use of a specific use case
The full RFI is posted here. Responses are due at 5:00 PM ET on January 15th, 2022.
