When everybody knows your name—and your smell

Biometric identification that goes beyond fingerprints

"Valid as the privacy concerns are, they are very much first-world problems. Most who worry about the privacy aspects of ID technology already enjoy the benefits of being identified, Gelb points out, like having passports, bank accounts and the ability to vote.

'When you look across the world, you see that those with the least access [to ID] are the poorest and the most excluded,' he says. 'To argue that these people live in some blissful state where no one knows who they are — this is bizarre.'"