Interoperability

For any emerging technology, interoperability across geographical borders and business sectors, across processes, devices and systems is beneficial to its diffusion. National interests in maintaining control and vendor resistance (aspiring to future market dominance due to lock-in effects) are natural barriers to interoperability. There is significant work being done at national and international levels to develop standards, which will be useful in promoting open systems development and interoperability.

Technical interoperability is likely to be achieved in the near future but interoperability of processes may be more challenging especially when biometrics become more widely diffused in society. When systems become more interoperable, the need for building safeguards against abuse grows as well. Moreover, since individuals have many different biometrics at their disposal, there is the possibility for different applications to make use of different biometrics, in the sense that limited interoperability may create barriers and thus protect against abuse. Such systems may still be compatible at the data transmission level and thus it may still be possible to cross-check information as to who was identified and where.