Do you feel liberated by the idea of not having to remember passwords anymore? Technology is now moving towards wearable chips and more body recognition to replace passwords, but one Wollongong technology researcher says they're not foolproof and, in using them, you're giving away more than you think.

In 2013, India rolled out the biggest and most ambitious biometric identity system in the world. The Aadhaar system collects the iris and fingerprint records for Indian adults and children, with each given a 12-digit identity number. Dr Michael says the scheme is dangerous and open to problems. "A lot of advocates in the privacy space are asking 'how can we prove that biometrics on that scale are unique'? "We know they're unique on a scale of 50 million people, but we don't know at a scale of 1.2 billion, and there's no legislation to support a mandatory adoption [of the scheme]." She says there is an inherent problem of giving away information that can never be changed. While you can easily change your password, you can't change your fingerprint or the patterns in your eye. "We're now giving away a lot of data and there's nothing to prove this will reduce terrorism, fraud or drug mafias participating in money laundering."