BIOS: Biosurveillance & Biometrics – Ethical & Humanistic Implications

Nancy Chen
Anthropology
UC Santa Cruz

Ronnie Lipschutz
Politics
UC Santa Cruz

BIOS was a UC systemwide faculty group assessing and investigating the digital intersections and effects of converging research, development and application in neuroscience, biometrics and data mining, intersections which raise the strong possibility of individual integration into a global system of biosurveillance, control and management of bodies, minds, and practices. This bio-opticon extends far beyond the security sector, as exemplified by NSA, to areas such as commerce, medicine, social welfare, cultural and literary preferences and even art. What remains largely unexamined are the ethical and philosophical issues raised by such digitization and the question of whether and how our humanity and the Humanities might be altered by such developments. We propose to organize a series of public talks by significant figures in the field of biometrics and biosurveillance, to raise and examine the ethical and humanistic aspects of these programs.