Rant Biometric information on Dutch ID card

[insanity]

This is there as a precaution against an increasingly violent world...You have nothing to worry about if you don't plan to do anything that is against the local laws.

That presupposes that humans and the world are 'more violent' now than they were before. The world has always had criminals of all-sorts, in fact some of the most violent people in human history are hundreds and thousands of years behind us. The world is getting more complex, sure, but human beings are at their finest when they grapple complex issues without resorting to the easiest instinctual level (fear). I think we can have modern society just fine without training everyone to be afraid of each other.

 

[cjp]

It's hardly an excuse...It's the truth. Saying that there shouldn't be a database of fingerprints is synonymous to saying that we should not have a police force, that we should have no officials to regulate laws. This is there as a precaution against an increasingly violent world...You have nothing to worry about if you don't plan to do anything that is against the local laws.

You know what's weird: that we managed to survive for so long without a database of fingerprints.

 

[computerex]

OK...So I suppose this thread is open for discussion. Correct me otherwise, cjp.

That presupposes that humans and the world are 'more violent' now than they were before. The world has always had criminals of all-sorts, in fact some of the most violent people in human history are hundreds and thousands of years behind us. The world is getting more complex, sure, but human beings are at their finest when they grapple complex issues without resorting to the easiest instinctual level (fear). I think we can have modern society just fine without training everyone to be afraid of each other.

The difference between the criminals in the past and now: Now the criminals can potentially destroy the world. Now they can cause damage unimaginable hundreds and thousands of years ago.

You know what's weird: that we managed to survive for so long without a database of fingerprints.

Yet change takes place so frequently. People used to live without automobiles and computers too...

 

[Ghostrider]

You have nothing to worry about if you don't plan to do anything that is against the local laws.

What happens when your government decides to "turn the screw" on your laws? Why give them so much power? And besides, all this database crap is an excuse to cut on the real investigative work. Why spend weeks or months - sometimes years - to find out facts the real hard way when we can put some poor sod in the slammer 'cause we found his DNA on a crime scene? And it will happen because unfortunately sloppy procedures do exist and bad crime scene management is not going away.

If our benevolent governments were really interested in "security" they would invest more in police personnel recruiting, training and equipment but it's too expensive and takes too much time, so let's make it something that any pencil-pusher can do from his workstation. Match a sample with a citizen's DNA, guy is guilty. End of argument.

Sheesh. As it is now we already have our share of innocents in the slammer because they happened to have the same name as the perp and the judge didn't bother to check it out.

---------- Post added at 11:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:19 PM ----------

The difference between the criminals in the past and now: Now the criminals can potentially destroy the world. Now they can cause damage unimaginable hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Oh, please. This is the most asinine argument around. What happens if tomorrow someone invents a disintegrator beam that can vaporize the planet with the energy from a 9V cell? Do you ban electricity?

Yet change takes place so frequently. People used to live without automobiles and computers too...

We used to live without individual liberties as well. This changed and guess what, we wouldn't want to change that back.

 

[Urwumpe]

Why spend weeks or months - sometimes years - to find out facts the real hard way when we can put some poor sod in the slammer 'cause we found his DNA on a crime scene? And it will happen because unfortunately sloppy procedures do exist and bad crime scene management is not going away.

Reminds me on a case in Germany lately. Police found DNA of the same person in many different and unrelated crime scenes in the same district. Eventually, they found out that the Q-tips they used for collecting the DNA samples had been contaminated with the DNA of a female worker at the production plant. The errors had been on many levels, in the plant as well as in the police, which violated many rules for collecting DNA samples.

Now just imagine the factory worker had been registered in a DNA database and was quickly found, instead of slowly tracing the DNA back into the factory of the Q-tips used in all cases. If this would have happened inside a single child abuse case, you would be long dead after your innocence and dignity is eventually restored.

 

[insanity]

The difference between the criminals in the past and now: Now the criminals can potentially destroy the world. Now they can cause damage unimaginable hundreds and thousands of years ago.

That is a side-effect of progress. Maybe we should be more careful with the technologies we develop and how they could lead to potential and criminal misuse. I think we can fight terrorism and crime without turning everyone into a suspect; biometrics can play a part in that (iris recognition, for example), but we should not allow ourselves to become criminal suspects just by virtue of being alive.

 

[Ghostrider]

Now just imagine the factory worker had been registered in a DNA database and was quickly found, instead of slowly tracing the DNA back into the factory of the Q-tips used in all cases.

Yeah, something like that happened to a waiter who had been accused of murder on the grounds his DNA was on the scene. He had been in England - hundreds of kilometers away - all the time. AFAIK the mistake took weeks to be corrected and was to be attributed to bad chain of custody procedure.

On another case, DNA-unrelated, a technician was found guilty of tampering the evidence in order to frame a suspect, because there had been heavy pressure to make an arrest in the shortest time possible.

Now, with this kind of guys in charge, why again should I trust them so much with my security?

 

[cjp]

It looks like I can't prevent a certain amount of discussion on the question of what the government should be allowed to know about you. Which is fine, because this needs to be discussed, and the forum is here for your discussion (as long as you keep it civil).

But for me that discussion is less relevant, as I already thought a lot about this, and I don't think I'll move my opinion anymore. I can overload you with arguments, and you can reply to them, but you need to come with something big to make me change my mind.

I just wondered, with people from all over the world here, if you have an idea which country is best for living life the way I want it. Jordan was a surprising suggestion; I need to have a closer look at that one. Do they like Christians in Jordan?

 

[Moonwalker]

But the bottom line is that I believe it's a very dangerous thing to have your fingerprints registered, and therefore I am looking for a different place to live.

Not much more "dangerous" than having an identification. Anybody can fake almost everything and make you look like a criminal. It starts with your signature already beside your fingerprints. Anybody can get almost everything of you any time. But that's somehow paranoia to be honest.

Several data is being registered already for decades. In a modern society/system this is almost inevitable. In the past people did not like population census. Today they don't like biometric data.

Innocently being under suspicion are individual cases and will remain individual cases. But general suspicion always exists anyway. Otherwise people would not lock everything.

 

[Urwumpe]

Do they like Christians in Jordan?

Christians are the second biggest religion there and have their own justice system for religious affairs. In general you have religious freedom there, more than for example in Israel or Turkey. Of course it is dominated by Islam, but the justice system is secular and independent. You have also no religious police like in other countries.

From chatting with people in Jordan, the biggest troublemakers in their eyes are Palestine refugees, so wearing Palestine cloth and talking loudly about the crimes against the Palestinians might not be a good idea to make friends there.

 

[computerex]

Oh, please. This is the most asinine argument around. What happens if tomorrow someone invents a disintegrator beam that can vaporize the planet with the energy from a 9V cell? Do you ban electricity?

That's not quite the same thing . It's not a good idea to use a hyperbole to make a point.


I see the root problem for opposition against the biometrics is because people don't trust their governments. If you don't trust your existing government, then moving to some other place won't likely change anything....More to the point, you are always going to end up finding problems, you will always be complaining about one thing or another. Don't treat the symptoms, treat the problem.

 

[Moonwalker]

I see the root problem for opposition against the biometrics is because people don't trust their governments. If you don't trust your existing government, then moving to some other place won't likely change anything....

Exactly.

 

[tblaxland]

• I need to be able to do so without supplying biometric information: otherwise, there would be no point in the whole exercise. AFAIK this excludes the United States.

How do you define biometric information? Is a printed photo acceptable? How about a photo stored on an RFID chip in digital form. That is what we have on our current series N passports. No fingerprint data. They don't state it explicitly but I'm pretty sure the photo is stored centrally.

• Naturally, I want to live in a rechtsstaat. I prefer to live in a welfare state, even while it probably means I'll end up supporting it through high taxes. Finally I prefer countries where the climate is nice (and likely to improve by global warming), the food tastes good and the women are beautiful.

Australia may not meet your other criteria but we've got this one licked, with the possible exception that we have no codified Bill of Rights or similar (we rely on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). A massive post WWII immigration program (including large numbers of Dutch) has ensured that not only is the food good and the women beautiful, but there is plenty of variety in both

I see the root problem for opposition against the biometrics is because people don't trust their governments.[...]Don't treat the symptoms, treat the problem.

So: trust your government and everything will be OK? I would suggest that a better course of action would to be vigilant with regard to your governments actions, and let them know that you are being vigilant. Do you think trusting your government is going to stop power hungry tyrants from doing the wrong thing with your personal information? Practically, a certain amount of trust is required but trust should not equal complacency.

FWIW, I don't in particular have a problem with the storage of fingerprint information on a passport chip. I would feel less secure about it being stored centrally - doing so just increases the risk that things can go wrong - information leaked, used for unauthorised purposes, etc - there are people working for the government after all, and people, myself included, are prone to acts of stupidy, incompetence, etc. Central storage delivers little-to-no benefits, IMHO.

 

[Andy44]

It's hardly an excuse...It's the truth. Saying that there shouldn't be a database of fingerprints is synonymous to saying that we should not have a police force, that we should have no officials to regulate laws. This is there as a precaution against an increasingly violent world...You have nothing to worry about if you don't plan to do anything that is against the local laws.

You're a smart guy, but you are completely wrong on this.

You are innocent until proven guilty. That's a standard that's been around since what, the Magna Carta?

Collecting biometric data is a way of invading privacy and treating you as if you are already a potential criminal.

Since we have had law enforcement officers in one form or another for centuries, this IS NOT the same thing as saying we should have no laws or officials.

I'm with Ark on this one. Also, with Ghostrider: this biometry stuff is way too popular, and the average knucklehead on the street has an attitude similar to you and Simonpro's: anyone who is afraid of being numbered and catalogued is just a conspiracy nut. Shut up, give your DNA sample, and go back to your nightclubs and your mp3 player. Nothing to see here.

To Cjp: if you're serious, go to Mexico, sneak across the US border and become an illegal immigrant. Then have a child in the US as fast as possible.

---------- Post added at 10:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:28 PM ----------

I see the root problem for opposition against the biometrics is because people don't trust their governments.

Yes, and this is because governments are not trustworthy.

 

[computerex]

You're a smart guy, but you are completely wrong on this.

This is an opinion based discussion. There is no right or wrong.

You are innocent until proven guilty. That's a standard that's been around since what, the Magna Carta?

Collecting biometric data is a way of invading privacy and treating you as if you are already a potential criminal.

It's a method to identity existing criminals. As far as the law enforcement agencies are concerned, everyone is a potential criminal. There is a big difference between being labeled as a potential criminal and someone who is a criminal. Everyone is a potential criminal. We are no saints.

Since we have had law enforcement officers in one form or another for centuries, this IS NOT the same thing as saying we should have no laws or officials.

Yes, we have had law enforcement officers for centuries, but there were none at one point. At that point people decided that it'd be beneficial for some form of central regulation. Our societies are constantly evolving.

To Cjp: if you're serious, go to Mexico, sneak across the US border and become an illegal immigrant. Then have a child in the US as fast as possible.
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Yes, and this is because governments are not trustworthy.

As if you are. You just completely proved my point...

 

[Ghostrider]

That's not quite the same thing . It's not a good idea to use a hyperbole to make a point.

It's a hyperbole to state that filing the whole population into a giant database will solve anything. It won't. No magical ID tech would have prevented the 9/11 attacks because, surprise surprise, the tangoes were on US soil with legit docs for instance. We're putting CCTVs everywhere and yet we can't do almost anything against drug pushers. Your fabulous arch-criminals out to destroy the world have had the chance to do their stuff for decades now and didn't, so it's safe to say they ain't that much of a problem since they only exist in James Bond movies.

The closest we have are some terrorists who can get to any country with either legit ID or no ID at all because there is a ton of systems to infiltrate our borders without ever showing papers, and the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack on the Tokyo tube which no magic biometric information could have prevented.

---------- Post added at 06:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:20 AM ----------

As far as the law enforcement agencies are concerned, everyone is a potential criminal.

Are you living in North Korea? Since when cops see citizens as potential criminals? Can they pick you off the street with no reason an interrogate you at their leisure? No, not in most democracies and with good reason because everyone happens to be innocent until proved otherwise.

A state that treats its citizens as "potential criminals" is a state that sees them as enemies. Why should let us, horrible potential criminals, vote then?

Our societies are constantly evolving.

Treating your citizens as potential criminals is not evolution but a step backward into a past we've long left behind.

 

[tblaxland]

It's a method to identity existing criminals.

No, its a method to allow fitting of potential criminals to actual crimes. Making it too easy to fit potential criminals to actual crimes increases the risk of false positives, especially in police forces where performance is increasingly measured by hard statistics. And yes, I know courts provide a layer of defence against this, but I would rather not need to rely on that if I can avoid it. Defence in depth for me.

Yes, we have had law enforcement officers for centuries, but there were none at one point. At that point people decided that it'd be beneficial for some form of central regulation. Our societies are constantly evolving.

"People"? As in citizens? They hardly decided. Police forces were created to protect the aristocracies. As states transitioned to democracies, so did the police transition so that they were more there to serve the people. We still need to be vigilant against attempts for the government to hand undue power to the police, eg: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/about_us/?a=153248

As if you are. You just completely proved my point...

Serious, or trustworthy? Your point was what?

 

[Ghostrider]

No, its a method to allow fitting of potential criminals to actual crimes. Making it too easy to fit potential criminals to actual crimes increases the risk of false positives, especially in police forces where performance is increasingly measured by hard statistics.

Exactly. The actual (pernicious) tendency is to reduce funds for cops (they sometimes have to buy their own equipment or be forced to work with sub-par stuff) because the government seems to be always strapped for cash it's wasting somewhere else. Add to that the PR requirements to "make arrests" in high-profile cases and you've got the picture.

And yes, I know courts provide a layer of defence against this, but I would rather not need to rely on that if I can avoid it.

Especially since going on trial will likely smash your life with a sledgehammer. As long as you're defending yourself you'll have to spend money and probably lose your job and your means of supporting yourself. Moreover just being a suspect will wreck your life for good.

 

[Ark]

Our justice system is geared towards tacking a name to a crime and closing the case quickly on anyone that can't afford a multimillion dollar trial. Hell, most people don't even get a trial, they get bullied into pleading guilty. A biometrics database will just allow them to short-cut the investigation and throw people in jail faster. Not to mention the vast potential of exploitation for political purposes. We've already seen how little evidence was required for the last administration to jail people indefinitely overseas, a system like this would only make it easier to get rid of political targets.

Biometrics would just be the tip of the iceberg, a system of that scope would obviously be rigged to include political viewpoints gained by web surfing habits and contributions, financial status, employment, consumer records, etc. Stuff that's already in corporate databases for sale to marketing companies, linking them together would be cake. Nobody deserves that kind of power, governments least of all.

 

[Artlav]

It's a method to identity existing criminals. As far as the law enforcement agencies are concerned, everyone is a potential criminal. There is a big difference between being labeled as a potential criminal and someone who is a criminal. Everyone is a potential criminal. We are no saints.

Not unless we are in a perfect world.
In reality, there is a crime.
Fingerprints were discovered on the scene.
The police compares them to the database of fingerprints, until a match is found.
The comparison is proven to have one in a million chance of failure.
Thus, he is guilty, with 1 to million chance of being wrong. What say you, judge?
-Guilty.

The problem is, there are about 17000000 people in The Netherlands, so if the test is kept running, it will eventually hit another match, and another, until about 17 are found.
Thus, while the chance of being wrong is 1 to million, the chance of being right is only 1 to 17, and an innocent man is going into jail for life.

With the performance of law enforcement judged by amount of arrests, the truth is irrelevant.