This collection examines the subject of identification and surveillance from 16th C English parish registers to 21st C DNA databases. The contributors, who range from historians to legal specialists, provide an insight into the historical development behind such issues as biometric identification, immigration control and personal data use.

Editors and Contributors Introduction; Ilsen About, James R. Brown and Gayle Lonergan PART I: THE CENTRAL STATE: SYSTEMS, STANDARDS, AND TECHNIQUES 1. Individual Identity and Identification in 18th Century France; Vincent Denis 2. Registration as Privilege: The Moscow Residence Permit as a Mark of Privilege in the Russian Empire, 1881-1905; Gayle Lonergan 3. Dissemination of the Argentine Dactyloscopy System in the Early Twentieth Century: Local, Regional and International Dimensions; Mercedes García Ferrari 4. The Philosopher and the Printer: Practices of Criminal Identification in Fascist Italy; Massimiliano Pagani 5. De-Neutralizing Identification: S. & Marper v. United Kingdom, Biometric Databases, Uniqueness, Privacy, and Human Rights; Simon A. Cole 6. The Biometric Fetish; Emilio Mordini and Andrew P. Rebera PART II: BEYOND THE CENTRAL STATE: COMMUNITY, COMMERCE, AND ECONOMICS 7. The Parish Registers in Early Modern English History: Registration from Above and Below; Simon Szreter 8. An Unusually Open Identification Number System: The Icelandic Kennitala; Ian Watson 9. From Custom to Civil Status Registration: The Anthropology of Kinship and the Rule of Law; Claudine Dardy 10. Consuming Identity and Consuming the State in Britain since c. 1750; Edward Higgs PART III: THE IDENTIFIED: PERCEPTION, RESISTANCE, AND NEGOTIATION 11. Cat and Mouse Games: The State, Indians in the Cape and the Permit System, 1900s-1920s; Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie 12. A Paper Trap. Exiles versus the Identification Police in France during the Interwar Period; Ilsen About 13. 'Ausweis Bitte!' Identity and Identification in Nazi Germany; Jane Caplan 14. What Do You Think The Household Register Is? Perceptions of Koseki Relating to Social Order and Individual Rights in 1950s and 2000s Japan; Karl Jakob Krogness 15. Denouncing and Resisting. Identity Assignment Policies in France, 1970-2010; Pierre Piazza 16. 'Establishing Your True Identity:' Immigration Detention and ContemporaryIdentification Debates; Melanie Griffiths Afterword The Future of Identification's Past: Reflections on the Development of Historical Identification Studies; Jane Caplan and Edward Higgs Index