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I'm old enough to remember when having your photo and fingerprints taken by the authorities was reserved to convicted criminals.
Now it will eventually be all of us.
All of us constantly tracked by governments and corporations alike, requiring our biometric data for anything they feel like.
Our privacy rights are going down the drain under the pretext of security.
But it will not make us safer, on the contrary.
Don't believe their authoritarian lies.
@Em0nM4stodon I used to refuse to enter any country that wanted to fingerprint me as, like you, I regard fingerprinting as something for criminals only.
But I broke my rule when offered a jolly to Japan.
I'm old enough to remember when having your photo and fingerprints taken by the authorities was reserved to convicted criminals.
Now it will eventually be all of us.
All of us constantly tracked by governments and corporations alike, requiring our biometric data for anything they feel like.
Our privacy rights are going down the drain under the pretext of security.
WE MUST FIGHT BACK
@Em0nM4stodon I'm now in a job where I see people getting their fingerprints taken for their jobs or their prospective jobs. Why? When did "background checks" become so essential? I once got turned down for a job stocking produce because of my "background", one charge in 50 years. What sense does that make?
@Em0nM4stodon I like to keep the thought in the back of my mind that when it comes to governments, every 4 years or so the other team can get a kick at the can with whatever tools the previous government thought was a good idea at the time.
@Em0nM4stodon What might seem like the absurd price of fame today, may soon become the inescapable price of participating in modern life.
@Em0nM4stodon in other news, Germany plans to abolish their credo of "not guilty until proven otherwise" and planning to replace it with "guilty unless proven otherwise"
🚬
@Em0nM4stodon It was usual and normal since I was a kid. The thing I find weird is how people are giving this data to anything and anyone, and not just government agencies which should handle this data with safety (and that they probably aren't handling this data correctly). Like, I refused to give my data to Stripe, no fucking way, there are official ways to prove my identity the government provide in such way they can know I'm me without they having access to my documents. No fucking way.
Photos and fingerprinting happen when a suspect is booked, long before conviction. But your point about intrusive surveillance is correct.
@Em0nM4stodon in 2004 the US already did that to any traveller under visa waiver.
@Em0nM4stodon our state had a major data breach 10s of thousands of photo ID drivers licences leaked. Took the govt months to reissue the licences with new numbers
How to you reset and issue new biometric data?
Matter of time till there's a breach, infact it makes it an irresistable target.
@Em0nM4stodon what time was that in
No conviction required, just arrest.
@Em0nM4stodon It is horrifying indeed. I (German) cannot renew my ID card since a fingerprint is mandatory in 2025. Without a valid ID card I am going to face problems for sure. I do not have any options though.
@Em0nM4stodon clearly the only solution is for us to become them. Then they’ll be us, and it will start all over again?
When every biometric value has been brought into question or is unreliably measured, this is what we should worry about?
Not the silicon spy with a UUID in your pocket?
This notion that biometric data collection will somehow keep us safe from terrorism seems to be one of the great follies that came out of 9/11.
Terrorism and criminality is the pretext, not the purpose.
I don’t believe it’s really the main purpose for liberal democracies, let alone authoritarian dictatorships.
What all governments want is conformity. They want people to feel a social pressure to conform - to obey laws (however draconian) and to work hard.
@Em0nM4stodon At the risk of sounding like an edgy preteen with the Tobey Maguire swoop, I gave up long ago on the idea that any of us truly have privacy should Big Brother want to reach us. We've only seen glimpses of the technology that they use to track "terrorists" on home soil and that tech keeps infiltrating our homes at an alarming rate.
Instead, I've been trying to focus more on giving them a big digital middle finger, of sorts, insisting that I have nothing to hide from them. Hey guys!
@Em0nM4stodon I have to give my thumbprint and picture for state ID in California. It's been coming for years. 😔
@Em0nM4stodon Belgium has been taking fingerprints for everyone aged 12 or over when applying for a (mandatory) ID card. There was virtually no political opposition to this harebrained nonsense.
It's crazy how countries everywhere are paving the way for totalitarian regimes.
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