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

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。生物识别技术，这种将官方身份与生理或行为特征联系起来的技术，在过去20年里在全球范围内激增。在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间，世界各国政府都依靠此类系统来限制和遏制传染病的传播。从某些方面来看，生物识别追踪和监控的扩大加剧了长期受到政府严密监控的社区的社会不平等和不安全。然而，生产和销售这种技术的工程师和企业家认为，生物识别监测对全球人口的健康和安全至关重要。本博士论文研究探讨了数字权利活动家、工程师、企业家和政策制定者如何理解、体验和应对生物识别监控。在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间和之后，生物识别监测技术的使用迅速扩大，该项目有可能帮助科学家了解不同社区中生物识别监测的社会文化影响。此外，研究人员计划与立法者和非政府组织分享数据，以帮助为围绕此类技术的道德使用的政策和监管辩论提供信息。这项研究包括在生产、销售和挑战使用生物识别技术作为疾病跟踪和监测工具的人群中进行人种学研究。定性方法包括在高科技行业背景下的参与性观察，与工程师和企业家的访谈，以及与城市规划者和监管机构一起研究在不同背景下这种监控系统的使用和功效。通过对数字权利组织者和倡导者的半结构化访谈和参与者观察，调查还询问了参与者为什么以及如何努力更好地监管和监督这些技术。研究成果有助于围绕科学技术的社会文化影响的社会科学理论，特别是生物特征监测。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.