Supporting and Humiliating Dignity with Biometric Technologies: An Affordance Perspective

Biometric technologies are at the forefront of organizational innovation, surveillance, and control. In many instances, the use of physiological and behavioral biometrics enhances individual and organizational performance. However, they also have the potential to hinder human wellbeing. In particular, recent generations of biometrics are capable of extracting deeper insights into human behavior, enabling organizational surveillance practices, but may also constrain individual rights and freedoms. While biometric technologies have been evidenced to infringe upon privacy and lead to discriminatory practices, little research has examined the impact of biometrics on dignity, an important ethical construct related to human wellbeing. In this conceptual paper, we draw from the theory of affordances to identify and delineate six affordances of biometric technologies, categorized into inhibiting and augmenting biometric affordances. We propose a framework in which inhibiting and augmenting biometric affordances may simultaneously support and humiliate dignity. This separation offers a theoretical base for future empirical research to explore the increasingly pervasive relationship between biometric adoption and human dignity. Moreover, we explain six paradoxical tensions across three forms of dignity—inherent, behavioral, and meritocratic—in the proposed framework. Finally, we discuss why firms should be responsible for addressing the tensions across dignity forms when they adopt biometric technologies to balance the trade-off between wealth creation and human wellbeing. This offers guidance for practitioners on how to integrate biometric technologies without hindering human dignity.