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

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

#371

Post by lmm »

krisoft wrote: post #335
Gasp0de wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every step needs to be automated, no. What's wrong with the way it is right now? I hand over my passport at the airport, it has my fingerprints saved on it and they can check those against whatever databases they have. No need to access European databases. The US government has just lost databases with biometric data of millions of afghan people, together with the information whether they worked for the ISAF forc…

> it has my fingerprints saved on it Yes! This is a curious thing too. Biometric passports already have biometric data. The USA will already have your biometric information read out from your passport. One possibility is that they have reasons to not trust the biometric passports completely. Perhaps someone found a way to fake them. Even if not, it seems prudent that they want to check all 3 things. What is in your p…

> X turns up at the border, why wouldn't the USA (or any country really) would want to know if they are all okay as far as their own country is concerned?

Everyone wants to know as much as they can, that's not a reason to tell them. As far as I'm concerned all my country should be telling the US is whether I hold a valid passport or not. If they want to see other data from my country's database, at a minimum they should need my authorization for that. They may insist I authorize that as a condition of entry to the US (or subject me to extra checks if I refuse), but they certainly don't need to be able to query my information whenever they like.

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

#372

Post by chaps »

jeremyjh wrote: post #340
satellite2 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are blacklists, i.e. known criminals. The US is asking for whitelists, i.e. everyone and without motives

No it isn’t. There is no bulk access, just responses to queries of biometric data for persons of interest.

That "just" is holding an enormous weight there, friend. Have you seen the query responses themselves to know whether they're not not getting back bulk info? And have you seen the giant private-public systems they'll want to funnel this info into?

Just from my own research on surveillance, I got back a bunch of records in a FOIA lawsuit that included the the query results of a bunch of license plate scans. Large XML blobs. For whatever reason, they didn't redact a few thousand pages of those query results.

A lot more info was in those query responses than you'd imagine. For example, SSNs of people whose license plates matched the first three digits of a "person of interest"'s car.

Mind you, this was after them arguing for months, with affidavits, that they don't have audit logs. So, yeah.

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

#373

Post by devoutsalsa »

omgomgomgomg wrote: post #184
pessimizer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that hyperbole is possible when you're discussing the necessity of having worldwide biometric "terrorist" lists that countries like Saudi Arabia would participate in. ----- edit: How would you code "terrorism through public demonstrations of driving while female" or "terrorism through being Yemen?" "Terrorism though applying for a marriage license after being mildly critical in the WaPo."

Finance background here. All these PEP, sanction lists, ofac monitoring, financial sanction lists already exist and every company with a worthwile monetary turnover ever facing an audit runs these background checks. The laws are there, they are called the aml directives, the lists are there. And most of the entries there are provided by eitjer uk or us entities, youll usually find foreign military personells data the…

On the related topic of Arabic names, I currently visiting Tunisia. The other day I asked one of my friends how to spell her name using Latin letters, and she said “you can use one C, two Cs, one K, it doesn’t matter.” Now I’m wondering how many people have problems because their names have been casually spelled a few different ways and linked to someone else’s name in accident.

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

#375

Post by cbsmith »

kanzenryu2 wrote: post #156
pessimizer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that hyperbole is possible when you're discussing the necessity of having worldwide biometric "terrorist" lists that countries like Saudi Arabia would participate in. ----- edit: How would you code "terrorism through public demonstrations of driving while female" or "terrorism through being Yemen?" "Terrorism though applying for a marriage license after being mildly critical in the WaPo."

In Saudi Arabia atheists are terrorists. And they also have the death penalty for terrorism.

This is misinformation. Saudi Arabia is not well regarded when it comes to religious freedom, and it has a law against apostasy (when a Muslim renounces their beliefs), which is a capital offense, but they don't classify atheists as terrorists.

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

#377

Post by PYTHONDJANGO »

InTheArena wrote: post #62

Reading through the slides, it appears that what has been discussed is sharing signature and fingerprints for travel into the USA. There is a lot of weasel words, but it's probably worth nothing that the USA currently collects this information for foreign nationals coming into the USA (as the EU does for Americans traveling into the EU). This is being done in the context of a DB query as part of the e VISA applicatio…

Your thinking seems to be based on the idea that "the government" are the good guys. This is extremely naive - and you even mention an example of a government that does not respect basic human rights.

These tools will be abused and must be rolled backed to save freedom and democracy. Authoritarian states working together on a techno-based total control vision is a very bad development.

Thinking about it, I do not understand how any neutral person would take your position - it reads like astroturfing propaganda work.

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

#379

Post by DocTomoe »

ceejayoz wrote: post #179
DocTomoe wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just cutting some hair won't do it. Given that DNA is in the follicle, you would have to extract a hair, e.g. pull it out. Doing so without consent or demanding it is a violation of medical ethics and/or assault.

You drop hairs all the time. Same for DNA; cops regularly get people by grabbing their coffee cup out of the trash.

Well, let's hope then that all the DNA they take is from random droppings, not coerced and/or under threat.

But that's not how government works, is it?

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

#380

Post by kennyloginz »

moate wrote: post #352
jongjong wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so horrible. They probably think that they're helping atheists by sending them to the afterlife early. But what if the atheist is right and when you die, your last moment alive becomes frozen in your consciousness forever.

>> what if the atheist is right and when you die, your last moment alive becomes frozen in your consciousness forever. I’m sorry what? Is this the predominant/common belief among other atheists? Pretty much everyone I’ve spoken with is more likely to think you just turn off, everything goes black, back to the void of unlife.

I’m not sure what others believe. But I bet that right before you die, it feels like you are running towards a light at the end of a tunnel. But for each step you take, you shrink by half. Making a moment feel like an eternity.
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