Consumer Biometric Privacy Protection Act of 1998

[Information Security <guy@panix.com>]

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/zdnn/0213/285183.html

[snip]
Labeled the "Consumer Biometric Privacy Protection Act of
1998," the bill prohibits trafficking in biometric databases,
mandates increased security for storing such data, and
prevents businesses from recording data for biometric
identification without the owner's consent. The bill also
increases the severity of identity theft, from a misdemeanor
to a felony. 

"How would you like your fingerprints to be sold over the Internet?"
[snip]

"[Biometric] identifiers [have the potential] to provide an
efficient, unintrusive, and accurate means of identifying
consumers in a variety of commercial and government
applications," said the text of the bill. 
[snip]


A massive proliferation of "fingertip scanning" products...

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/pcwk/1505/279078.html

In separate efforts to strengthen the rapidly evolving
biometric industry, vendors and industry groups have
announced three separate biometric APIs, each proposed
as "the standard API" for biometric application
development. Now the real work begins, as developers,
users, industry associations, manufacturing interests and
government agencies express their opinions on which to
back or on how to roll them into one.
[snip]

The National Registry Inc. (www.nrid.com) was the first to
unveil a universal standard, dubbed HA-API, although
IBM had announced its coming API previously. NRI
developed HA-API as an initiative for the U.S. Department
of Defense. The outcome is a high-level umbrella for any
biometric technology, although the specification currently
supports only the Win32 environment. NRI has
demonstrated HA-API's capability by implementing it in its
line of fingertip scanning products, as well as in Keyware
Technologies Inc.'s Voice Guardian speaker verification
product.
[snip]