'This is junk science': The UK takes aim at biometric tech
Tech Life
BBC
4.3 • 227 Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The UK's deputy information commissioner tells Tech Tent why some new biometric technologies are "the modern phrenology", and based on "magical" thinking. We discuss whether the world is too dependent on WhatsApp - and why Big Tech financial results are going down the drain. Our reporter visits a factory making a female crash test dummy, and we ask what next for the self-styled "Chief Twit" Elon Musk as he completes his purchase of Twitter.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On Radio 4, the more you listen, the more you see. |
| 0:04.7 | Hello, I'm Brian Cox. |
| 0:05.6 | And I'm Robin Ince, and this is The Infinite Monkey Cage. |
| 0:08.3 | In this series, we're going to have a planet off. |
| 0:10.8 | I feel like Jupiter wins. |
| 0:12.8 | And after all of that, we're just going to chill out a bit. |
| 0:15.9 | We're talking about your bog standard. |
| 0:17.8 | Ice, not the fancy one. |
| 0:20.1 | Science with funny bits. |
| 0:21.9 | The new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. |
| 0:24.1 | Listen on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.5 | Welcome back to the TechTent. |
| 0:33.3 | We'd run some biometric tests on you before you step inside. |
| 0:36.7 | But the Information Commissioner's Office here in the UK has warned us they'll never work. |
| 0:41.0 | Don't be fooled into thinking these technologies are like that, |
| 0:44.1 | where there is a credible pathway where more computing power |
| 0:47.2 | or more background data could provide the answer. |
| 0:50.5 | The scientists tell us this is junk science. |
| 0:53.5 | This is a modern- day phrenology. |
| 0:56.3 | It's a great theory, but actually all the testing done by scientists shows that this does not work. |
| 1:01.9 | Hush, more on that later. |
| 1:03.5 | Also this week, after another WhatsApp outage, |
... |
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