This paper sets out to give a brief overview of the most compelling ethical and social implications of biometrics. It is based on several years of research funded by the Dutch organization for scientific research (NWO), and the EC funded Support Action Biometric Identification Technologies and Ethics (BITE). First, the issue of the status of biometric data is discussed, and second, it is argued that biometrics are an instance of the wider phenomenon of the contemporary redefinition of the body in terms of information, or the informatization of the body. In the third section, the implications of the arguments so far are drawn out by highlighting the ways in which biometric applications are caught in a series of paradoxes and tensions relating to identification, social categorization, surveillance, and democratic control.