Doctoral Dissertation Research: Security Versus Privacy in the Monitoring of People in Urban Areas

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

Biometric technologies, technologies that fix official identities to physiological or behavioral traits, have proliferated globally over the last two decades. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide have relied on such systems to limit and curtail the spread of infectious disease. By some measures, the expansion of biometric tracking and monitoring has intensified social inequality and insecurity for communities long subjected to intensive state surveillance. However, engineers and entrepreneurs producing and marketing such technologies frame biometric surveillance as vital to the health and security of populations globally. This doctoral dissertation research examines how digital rights activists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers understand, experience, and respond to biometric surveillance. As the use of biometric surveillance technologies rapidly expands during and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this project has the potential to help scientists apprehend the socio-cultural implications of biometric surveillance among distinct communities. In addition, the researcher plans to share data with lawmakers and non-governmental organizations to help inform policy and regulatory debates surrounding the ethical use of such technologies.

This research includes ethnographic research among those producing, marketing, and challenging the use of biometric technologies as tools of disease tracking and monitoring. Qualitative methods include participant observation in high-tech industry settings, interviews with engineers and entrepreneurs, and research alongside city planners and regulators debating the use and efficacy of such surveillance systems in diverse contexts. Through semi-structured interviews and participant observation with digital rights organizers and advocates, the investigation also asks why and how actors work towards better regulation and oversight of such technologies. Research findings contribute to social scientific theories surrounding the socio-cultural impacts of science and technology more generally, and biometric surveillance in particular.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.