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US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

digit.so36.net

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Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very correct. However, I would amend your solution: the solution is modern encryption and open source. These two in conjunction allow you to verify trust. ToS is like HR: they both exist to protect only the company.

Let's say hypothetically, Facebook buys Signal. They get all the code and signing keys, then use those to push a new update to the Signal app. This update decrypts your messages using the key on your device, then sends those decrypted messages to Facebook. What are you going to do about it? Call your senators, who are now in love with Facebook for giving the federal government access to these previously private commu…

This is why I do not recommend centralized walled garden called Signal. Try that with Matrix.

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#272
So the same government that has just lost the biometric data of millions of afghan people (including afghan employees of ISAF military whose life is now in danger because of this) and merely shrugged when asked about it now wants access to my biometric data? No thanks.

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could go to the supreme court, maybe violates the 4th amendment? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" meaning, I got the right to secure my sh*t.

Great, but this news item is about the government of the USA demanding rights over the personal data of people in other countries. Not being citizens, the US govt considers them lesser people with no Constitutional protection.

Basically the same right is in the human rights convention, which has no caveats about citizenship and to which the US is a signatory.

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#274

So what is the concern here? The USA wants to check those who turn up at their border is who they say they are, and they also want to know if they are a good egg as far as the authorities know where they are from. Both of these sound iminently reasonable.

The concern is they want to access biometric data in an automated fashion. The USA are known to be careless and/or evil when it comes to dealing with sensitive data. Why can't they just run someones fingerprint at the airport against their national databases and any international terrorist databases that might exist?

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#275
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a US citizen I would absolutely love that (a short, unprintable answer from the EU to the US). And would cheer if the EU were in a position to deliver this. But... The way it looks to me (sorry, not trying to offend) is that while the EU may be an OK construct for the peacetime prosperity it is not functioning well during the times of conflict. As of today, it does not have military strength, energy security or ec…

The thing is that every time the EU shows any interest in integrating its military forces into a something new that would be under the control of the EU rather than individual member states, the US argues against it at both the diplomatic and PR levels. This pattern has been going on since at least the Clinton administration.

Since the Kabul withdrawal disaster there has been some more strength behind the EU battle group concept.

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#277

Whether it's good local privacy laws in your country or a good privacy-respecting TOS from a company, both are basically worthless when a bigger entity comes barging into the picture. So your government collects biometric data but passes laws promising not to misuse it... you may very well find that those promises are worth less than dirt when a country with leverage over your own starts making demands that your gove…

The battle is lost the moment data is collected. It will be leaked, misused, stolen etc. The question is not IF, the question is WHEN.

All the laws, promises, good intentions etc are not worth the paper they are written on. If there is data to be stolen, it will be stolen.

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite nicely explained on the official EU site (much better than how I understand): https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/implement/liquidity_lines/htm... Without a swap line banks couldn't just treat EUR as USD whenever an entity needs to keep USD for import/export purposes.

That goes both ways. The US economy is dependent on having markets for consumer goods. Losing the EU as an easy market nukes the US economy as well.

Yeah, one would think post-Brexit and post-pandemic and post-Russian invasion of Ukraine people would in general be more aware of interdependence in trade, finance, manufacturing, etc. but apparently not. (Yes, they did say that before WWI, and today it's a million times more intertwined)

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not especially valuable or private anyway. If you leave something everywhere you go (ie you can’t protect it without a spacesuit), and there’s nothing special about it compared to anyone else’s (in terms of economic value), it can’t be either of those things. People are especially sensitive about their DNA since they think pharma companies can somehow develop new expensive drugs just by looking at it. (There’s a…

This is not thoughtful. Everything is somewhere, so therefore nothing is special as compared to anything? Nevertheless, businesses and dictatorships somehow find value in the information collected and organized in files and databases.

I didn't say anything about "the information collected and organized in files and databases". And I don't think businesses find your fingerprints very helpful in selling you things.

Mostly the value in tracking you comes from profiling you, i.e. building relationships between facts, mostly metadata about what you do over time. But biometrics aren't metadata and aren't what you do.

I did mention "discrimination" but redacting data in case future governments are racist isn't all that useful; they're the government, you can't hide from them, and since discrimination isn't based on real objective categories then you can't predict what it will be based on. There's no biometric for being a Cagot.

Re: US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]

#280
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Did Germany own the pipeline? A cursory search indicates that it was owned by the hostile Russian government unless I am mistaken?

Nord Stream AG is a Swiss holding company. Try a little harder next time. And the Russians have only been hostile towards the far-right controlled Ukrainian government (which murdered over 10k of its own Russian-speaking civilians in the Eastern oblasts before February 2022), not Germany.
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