It's the one form of identification you really can't leave home without. Biometrics, the digitization of unique physical characteristics such as fingerprints, retinal patterns, and voiceprints, has become increasingly popular as a way of confirming identity.
Some jurisdictions already use such data to track prison guards and inmates.
The industry is becoming big enough that technology companies last week announced a consortium to develop standards for biometrics hardware and software. A bill in the California Assembly would regulate the industry and make the sale of biometric data a crime. Since direct marketers buy and sell Social Security numbers and mothers' maiden names, Howard said it's reasonable to assume some companies will try to do the same thing with biometric data. There's also a fear that criminals will use the information to get access to personal records and accounts, or to impersonate someone. In most cases, biometric data of your baby blues, for example, is not stored as a visual image but as mathematical data representing the configuration of your unique retina or iris.