Tid og sted for prøveforelesning
Bedømmelseskomité
Professor Charles D. Raab, University of Edinburgh
Ass. Professor Charlotte Bagger Tranberg, Aalborg Universitet
Professor Marit Halvorsen , Universitetet i Oslo (leder).
Leder av disputas
Prodekan for forskning Inger-Johanne Sand
Veileder
Førsteamanuensis Lee A. Bygrave
Summary
Bio-privacy: Legal Challenges for Privacy Regulations of Biometric Identification and Authentication
The main objective of the thesis is to find out what are the privacy issues raised by the use of biometric technology and what might be the appropriate legal solutions? Characteristics of biometric information and examining legal safeguards which exist on national and EU levels has been analyzed, with the aim of recommending appropriate safeguards in order to provide adequate human rights and personal data protection. The fundamental idea on which the thesis is based is that an interaction exists between biometric technology and privacy protection. The consequences of biometric technology development will unavoidably affect the function and nature of privacy protection. The legal measures of privacy protection could, however, be adjusted according to the challenges posed by the technology, and so ensure that the technology be used in a privacy-friendly manner. To achieve the central objectives of this thesis, four sets of sub-questions were investigated: 1) what are the privacy issues in the biometric context? 2) How are these issues dealt with under the law currently? What principles are applied? What interests are served? 3) Is current regulation satisfactory? Does it facilitate a fair weighting of the diverse interests involved? Is it sufficiently clear? Is it applied consistently? 4) Generally, what is the most appropriate approach to deal with the legal challenges posed by the use of biometrics? These sub-questions are dealt with in different parts of the thesis, and the answers to each provide the results that I delineate in the conclusion.