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Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

theregister.com

111–120 of 283 posts

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#111
post #109
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they be publicly available and easily obtainable?

1. Most people already share this data in the form of photos posted online. 2. So people don't treat it as a "secure secret," because we've been down this road more than once before.

That's so stupid. Just because I posted a video on TikTok doesn't mean someone should be able to go to the city's public website, look me up on a yellow page and download my photo id and fingerprints.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#112

I think it's an interesting visual to compare the Stasi's rows of scent jars to data centers filled with banks of flash memory storing biometric data.

The horror of that constrasted with the blithe compliance of modern citizens.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be treated just as stupidly as Social Security numbers, and soon we'll have biometric data breaches. >sigh Aside: Social Security numbers should be public now, too. That ship sailed a long time ago and it should be recognized.

Hey now, at least I'm able to change my social security number and passwords. Good luck changing eyes.

Changing your social security number is only slightly easier. Okay, maybe that's hyperbole. But having your SSN exposed isn't a good enough to be able to change it. You have to show it is actively being abused, and you can't address the problems another way.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#114
post #105

One thing that i would prefer in biometrics would be that the iris/fingerprints get treated as what they are publicly available and easily obtainable data. At worst using it a a secret key is similar to using your name as a hidden variable for authorisation, whent it sshould strictly be a identification token.And once leaked you cant revoke it . Back on topic , a Gattaca type system is unbelievably bleak and when(not…

Why should they be publicly available and easily obtainable?

Many SSNs have been compromised already. The jig is up. It was never supposed to be an identity system but organisations keep insisting on using it as one. Even if they aren’t literally publicly available and easily obtainable, they should be treated as such.

https://constella.ai/verifying-the-national-public-data-brea...

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How does it work?" "It's magic. All technology is."

Given that we don’t know why electromagnetism exists, this is basically true for many technologies.

We don't know why the world itself exists so everything is magic

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#116
post #22
post #15

Did you know that the State of California has a DNA sample from every person born in the state since 1983? It's required by law for the hospital to collect it and give it to the state.

This is a particularly incendiary way of putting this information out there. What is collected and stored is a small blood-spot sample from a heel prick on a newborn. This is used to test for various kinds of conditions that affect newborns. This isn't a full DNA genome sequence or even any data at all, just the blood-spot specimen. Law enforcement does not have automatic access to this sample, but individual samples…

"There isn't a clear SOP for how law enforcement typically gets this information..."

Then no, it wasn't an incendiary claim.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#117
post #22
post #15

Did you know that the State of California has a DNA sample from every person born in the state since 1983? It's required by law for the hospital to collect it and give it to the state.

This is a particularly incendiary way of putting this information out there. What is collected and stored is a small blood-spot sample from a heel prick on a newborn. This is used to test for various kinds of conditions that affect newborns. This isn't a full DNA genome sequence or even any data at all, just the blood-spot specimen. Law enforcement does not have automatic access to this sample, but individual samples…

> This is used to test for various kinds of conditions that affect newborns.

Then why do they keep the samples?

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#118
post #39

You can submit a public comment on the proposal to DHS at the link below: https://www.regulations.gov/document/USCIS-2025-0205-0002/co...

I suspect this government isn’t receptive to commentary from anyone other than only one person. While I’d never discourage anyone from advocating their beliefs this feels like at best a waste of energy. They are going to do it because they decided to do it - the solicitation of comments is performative and required. The only way to stop it is via the courts and by voting next November.

> this government isn’t receptive to commentary from anyone

Name one government of the past 60 years that was.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#119
post #22
post #15

Did you know that the State of California has a DNA sample from every person born in the state since 1983? It's required by law for the hospital to collect it and give it to the state.

This is a particularly incendiary way of putting this information out there. What is collected and stored is a small blood-spot sample from a heel prick on a newborn. This is used to test for various kinds of conditions that affect newborns. This isn't a full DNA genome sequence or even any data at all, just the blood-spot specimen. Law enforcement does not have automatic access to this sample, but individual samples…

> but individual samples have been given to law enforcement through court orders or warrants.

Then I can easily guarantee you that individual samples have been given to law enforcement _without_ orders or warrants.

> There isn't a clear SOP for how law enforcement typically gets this information

Which means there is zero oversight, logging, or auditing.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#120

One thing that i would prefer in biometrics would be that the iris/fingerprints get treated as what they are publicly available and easily obtainable data. At worst using it a a secret key is similar to using your name as a hidden variable for authorisation, whent it sshould strictly be a identification token.And once leaked you cant revoke it . Back on topic , a Gattaca type system is unbelievably bleak and when(not…

It'll be treated just as stupidly as Social Security numbers, and soon we'll have biometric data breaches. >sigh Aside: Social Security numbers should be public now, too. That ship sailed a long time ago and it should be recognized.

What if people just publicized their own social security number, and then whenever they had to deal with "identity theft", they just pointed out that their SSN is public information and so it was negligent for the company to believe it was them just because of a SSN.
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