Although technology as a dehumanising force has been a popular theme in fictional as well as non-fictional writing, I am sure there is more evidence that technology as an enabler has given us all more time and opportunity to pursue the positive things that make us human.
Communications technology is perhaps the best example of technology bringing us closer to others. I am fairly confident that anyone who uses e-mail on a regular basis would find it difficult to live without it.
Personally, e-mail has revitalised many old relationships that had dwindled to the level of letters once a year at Christmas, and sustained many new ones that might otherwise have declined and faded through lack of physical contact.
Voice and video communication via the Internet have done even more than e-mail and instant messaging to discount the distances as well as foster and grow relationships between people on opposite sides of the world. It is now possible to maintain contact easier and be 'closer` to others than ever before.
The introduction of cellular telephony has probably been the most revolutionary technology to hit the world in recent decades. Within a short period of time, 24-hour personal communication has not only become a reality but an integral part of life for millions of people.
SMS has taken direct personal communication to a level that would have been inconceivable not so long ago. In times of joy and crisis, no one needs to be alone. No one needs ever be out of reach.
Technology is able to leap almost all physical barriers to give users a sense of contact, community, support and security. Anyone who has ever received an 'I love you` SMS or needed to call the AA on a dark night will tell you that.
Touch me
As technologists search for the most secure and effective way of authenticating individuals, there seems to be a huge growth in solutions involving biometrics.
Warwick Ashford, technology editor, ITWeb
Personal communication, however, is not the only area of technological development that could be said to have had a positive or humanising effect. As organisations demand increasing levels of accountability and security among employees, partners and customers, another topic has shifted technology focus to human beings, or at least their physical characteristics.
As technologists search for the most secure and effective way of authenticating individuals, there seems to be a huge growth in solutions involving biometrics, or the verification of unique personal characteristics.
In a recent report on identity management, Global Research Partners said strong authentication had become a business imperative for organisations facing regulatory compliance governing the privacy and protection of digital information, driving the need for effective authentication systems.
The most commonly used biometric is the fingerprint, which a Cape-based company has included in a series of innovative authentication offerings. I have even seen PDAs that have built-in fingerprint readers. No doubt this will soon be commonplace in all personal digital devices.
The range of applications for biometric-based authentication systems is extremely wide, including access control, time and attendance control and monitoring, and card possession verification.
An Israeli company that has developed a card that can encode a card identification number and a one-time password in a sound that can be transmitted by telephone or any sound-enabled PC is also looking to include biometrics in the form of finger and voice print identification as part of its card possession and authentication technology.
Another biometric application that has caught my attention is one that could finally seal the future of e-commerce. It is no fiction, but already a reality that biometrics can be used for Internet and intranet security, which remains vital for the success of Web-based commerce.
Technology that uses biometrics to identify users and authorise transactions over the Internet and other networks could be the key to confirming the success of e-commerce in the history books of the future.
As is often the case with groundbreaking technologies, SA is at the forefront of biometric identification applications, using the technology to register and track street children as part of a social services project in the Western Cape.
Built-in ID
Biometrics takes authentication beyond the limitations of what people have and what they know, eliminating the possibility of losing cards or tokens and forgetting passwords and identification numbers.
Biometrically-based security systems rely on the users themselves, which is something that cannot be forgotten, lost, or replicated. They also shift the focus from technology onto the user - the human being interacting with technology.
Perhaps it is time to get real about technology and recast it in the role of enabling humanity through keeping us in contact with other people and granting us access to goods and services because of who we are.
Unlike the science fiction scenarios where humans are reduced to numbers, the world of biometrics recognises each human being as unique. Here is a technology that is based on our individuality, reminding us that none of us is a clone (yet), but a unique human being. What could be more humanising than that?
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