Rant Biometric information on Dutch ID card

[cjp]

Starting from today, Dutch ID cards and passports will contain fingerprint information. It is not possible anymore to receive an ID card without giving them your fingerprints, unless you somehow have no finger prints because of some medical condition.

I discovered this situation a bit too late, because otherwise I would have applied for new ID documents before this whole thing came into action. Now my passport will expire soon, and I don't want to give my fingerprints.

The biometric information (the fingerprint and facial information from the photo) will be stored in a central database. They openly say they do so, but even if they didn't, I'd assume they'd do it anyway. The government claims the database will not be accessible for criminal investigation, but it admits that future governments may decide otherwise. Besides, it already will be available to the AIVD, to be used for "terrorism prevention". And the Dutch government has shown in the past to be extremely careless when it comes to privacy matters.

It's nearly impossible to live in the Netherlands without an ID. You can't get a bank account, you can't get a (legal) job, you can't get social security. Since 2004, ID is compulsory, and the police is allowed to ask for ID in certain situations (e.g. when you are a witness of a crime scene), and give you a €50 fine or arrest you if you don't show an ID.

I'm seriously considering to migrate to another country. I am serious about this! Does anyone here have a good suggestion?

I think I need the following:

• I need to be able to access the country, either with my current documents, or e.g. with some temporary document supplied by a consulate.
• 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.
• I should be able to receive citizenship before my Dutch ID card / passport expires, or otherwise be allowed permanent residence until I receive citizenship.
• The country should not have a similar situation as in the Netherlands, and a situation like this should not be likely to appear in the near future. I prefer countries that supply ID documents without biometric information, but I think it's more important to be able to live without ID card at all.
• I prefer countries close to the Netherlands, so that my family can visit me more often (or I can visit them, if that's still possible). Also, countries that accept European ID cards give me some more years to prepare migration, because my passport expires sooner.
• 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.

 

[TSPenguin]

Germany is out. We will have fully biometric ID next year and our passports even include RFID.
Of course local hackers have proven that it is easy to copy, falsify and create those digital information with ease.

I suggest you look further north, the scandianavian countries seem quite interesting in this matter.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, AFAIR, all countries start including biometric information for population control. Like Volker Pispers put it "When we start including the fingerprints in our passports like Spain does, maybe we will have as little terrorism as Spain".

In Germany, you have opt-in for the biometric information in your passport, when such data can be included in the chip (from 2010 on). I have good hopes that there will be no slander or central server with it, as our privacy protection officials have gained a lot of public power here lately, after companies got caught spying illegally on their employees. The new passport will also allow identification services for the internet over special client software, which means for me: Hackers delight.

You also have the duty to carry your passport here in Germany, but I don't know the fine for not showing it.

If you immigrate here, you will still not get around the biometry craze, despite being EU citizen. While you can opt-in for the passport, the traveling passport is mandatory - it is demanded by the ICAO. But your data is then only needed for traveling outside Schengen Space and will currently also not be saved on a central server. We have other vices.

If you want beautiful women, I have to disappoint you here... the best country is then Czech Republic. The legal situation there is unknown to me, but I believe it has biometric information gathered.

In general, for all your desires except small distance to your family, I would have proposed Jordan. Despite being a (constitutional) monarchy, it is pretty progressive compared to European countries. It also seems to fulfill the beautiful women criteria. Food clearly tastes good there and climate might be a bit too mediterrean for your tastes.

 

[Ghostrider]

There's nowhere to run. Biometrics will be the rule everywhere. You can move to another country and in 5 years or less you'll be back to square one, and sooner or later the reality of economics will dictate that you'll have to stay where your job is.

 

[cjp]

Germany is out. We will have fully biometric ID next year and our passports even include RFID.
Of course local hackers have proven that it is easy to copy, falsify and create those digital information with ease.

I suggest you look further north, the scandianavian countries seem quite interesting in this matter.

Yeah, they're also my favorite candidates. I already looked up some information:

Norway:

• Outside the EU (good), and they still accept my European ID card (good). OTOH, for travel documents, they seem to be bound to the travel document requirements of the EU.
• Seems to have no internal ID system (good)
• The country is beautiful, but it's a bit empty and I'm not sure whether I can find a good job within my expertise.

Denmark:

• Close to the Netherlands (good)
• Seems to have no real internal ID system (good)
• Seems to have a culture very similar to the Netherlands (don't know what to think about that). I might be able to adapt quickly, but OTOH they might accept EU craziness too eagerly, like the Netherlands.

Sweden:

• Seems to have no obligatory ID, but I read you still need the ID for pretty much everything. Maybe like the Netherlands before 2004, but as they're in the EU, they might need to place biometrics on the ID card in the future.

Finland:

• Don't know much about its ID system (maybe similar to Sweden?).

Iceland:

• Far away! (bad)
• Don't know much about its ID system (maybe similar to Norway?).
• Outside the EU (good), and they still accept my European ID card (good). OTOH, for travel documents, they seem to be bound to the travel document requirements of the EU.
• The economy seems to have crashed more than in other countries (bad). Because of recent political conflicts, they might not like Dutch people (bad too).

---------- Post added at 09:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 PM ----------

There's nowhere to run. Biometrics will be the rule everywhere. You can move to another country and in 5 years or less you'll be back to square one, and sooner or later the reality of economics will dictate that you'll have to stay where your job is.

I'm afraid you might be right. That is why I think it's important to choose a place where ID is not mandatory for anything.

It might not be possible to travel between countries without biometric information until (hopefully) times will change for the better in the future. I want to wait for that moment without supplying any biometric information, which might involve staying in a single country for a long time. At this moment, for a short amount of time, I can still choose which country will be my prison. So I want to choose my prison wisely.

An opt-in system like in Germany might sound nice, but it can be dropped easily in the future, especially if traveling in the EU without biometrics becomes impossible. In a country without an internal ID system at all, a lot more needs to be changed before you'll get into trouble by refusing to supply biometric information.

 

[Urwumpe]

An opt-in system like in Germany might sound nice, but it can be dropped easily in the future, especially if traveling in the EU without biometrics becomes impossible. In a country without an internal ID system at all, a lot more needs to be changed before you'll get into trouble by refusing to supply biometric information.

Well, the problem is: You need a reliable identification system in every country, and that also for modern technologies... so the passports will need to improve.

But what is not needed is fingerprints and biometric information for innocent people... I see no sane reason to include digital data about my fingerprints, except for criminalizing me. I can understand a photograph, which could be used for making sure my passport is not abused by somebody else...but fingerprints? fingerprint scanners are still easily cheated, and really modern biometric technology not widespread, for example blood vessel scans of your hand, which also has no use for criminalizing you (= making it easier to punish you for a crime you didn't commit or create laws which you can't follow). Of course, unless you have the tendency to leave scans of your hand blood vessels at a crime scene.

It is a sign of a very bad trend, to use the worst possible and easiest faked biometric attributes as primary mandatory method - never attribute maliciousness when stupidity could be also used for explaining something, but I can't believe that all politicians are unable to inform themselves about the technology they vote for...

 

[Ark]

The amount of power available to the ruling class by having a complete and easily searchable database of everybody's movements, financial information, consumer records, etc is irresistible. Every country that has the means to implement this system eventually will, it's basic human nature. People's privacy doesn't mean a damn thing in comparison to the ability to leave people with no place to hide.

 

[simonpro]

Man the harpoons! Don the tinfoil hats!

 

[computerex]

I don't see why anyone would be worried about this unless they plan to participate in some criminal activity...Not that I am implying that cjp here is a criminal of course .

 

[Urwumpe]

I don't see why anyone would be worried about this unless they plan to participate in some criminal activity...Not that I am implying that cjp here is a criminal of course .

Guess who defines which behavior is criminal...

 

[Moonwalker]

I see no sane reason to include digital data about my fingerprints, except for criminalizing me.

In fact any human is a potantial criminal because every human potentially can do criminal things at any time. People don't like that, but on the other hand why do they lock their cars and doors for example? Because they trust each other, the society?

I don't think it is a bad idea to have a data base of fingerprints, facial parameters and even DNA in future. You have to provide your DNA anyway when there is a crime especially child abuse and murder.

 

[Ark]

I don't see why anyone would be worried about this unless they plan to participate in some criminal activity...Not that I am implying that cjp here is a criminal of course .

Oldest excuse in the book for stealing civil liberties.

 

[Urwumpe]

You have to provide your DNA anyway when there is a crime especially child abuse and murder.

I don't have to. I can refuse, but then, you can see the whole power of incompetence inside our police*, so it is a question of your war budget. Without a judge ordering it, nobody can force a DNA sample from me. Just like the police can't take a blood sample from you if they catch you singing dirty songs as pedestrian at night - but if you are caught driving obviously drunk, it will be no problem getting a judge supporting the action.


* I mean the fact that they manage to suspect a whole region of males in such a case, despite all experts and experience showing that the criminal will eventually be found less than 100m away from the home of the victim - after criminalizing the whole region failed, but enough DNA samples had been taken.

 

[computerex]

Oldest excuse in the book for stealing civil liberties.

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.

 

[insanity]

Lets say there is a person who smokes pot, drops his bag, a cop finds it and runs a finger print scan on it- that person could now conceivably face distribution charges. The problem is biometrics could and probably would lead to lazy police work with more people under the microscope because of the traces they leave each day. I'm not comfortable with a state that treats all of its citizens like suspects by having everyone's vitals in an accessible database. There are other technologies that exist for identity verification that would not lead to criminal charges.

 

[Urwumpe]

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

Again, do you know who will be the person who makes the local laws?

Usually it will be the very same person that will tell you that "if you have not done something wrong, you will have nothing to fear". What is wrong and what is not, can change over time...and that pretty quickly.

I just remind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_legislation_in_prewar_Nazi_Germany

Especially follow the timeline in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Restoration_of_the_Professional_Civil_Service

In 1933, you had nothing to fear if you comply to the law...in 1945, you might be dead because of the following laws. Singular example? Exception?

Look at the French Revolution, the show processes during communist revolutions, etc...

 

[computerex]

Again, do you know who will be the person who makes the local laws?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1933, you had nothing to fear if you comply to the law...in 1945, you might be dead because of the following laws. Singular example? Exception?

So you just don't trust your government?

 

[cjp]

In fact any human is a potantial criminal because every human potentially can do criminal things at any time. People don't like that, but on the other hand why do they lock their cars and doors for example? Because they trust each other, the society?

Should I trust the government or should the government trust me?

I don't think it is a bad idea to have a data base of fingerprints, facial parameters and even DNA in future. You have to provide your DNA anyway when there is a crime especially child abuse and murder.

The difference is: when they register your fingerprints, DNA etc. because you are somehow involved in a major crime, you already are a suspect even before they register them. When crime scene samples are compared against a huge database of innocent people, and somehow you match, then you become a suspect based on the match alone.

Now if you really are the criminal, then they catch the guy who did it, which is usually a good thing. But one of the problems with matching in huge databases like this is that, even with very reliable matching tests, the statistics become so much inverted that the probability is actually greater they'll catch someone innocent. This inversion of statistics is so counter-intuitive that many people refuse to believe it (including probably some judges, and certainly most jury members). Besides, fingerprints are easy to falsify, so a criminal could e.g. get your fingerprints from a glass in a restaurant, to give the police a false trail.

There are many more things that can go wrong, including abuse by criminals, abuse by future governments, abuse by allied governments which received this data from your own government, and abuse by foreign governments where you traveled to with your passport. 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. What you think and do is your choice.

 

[Urwumpe]

So you just don't trust your government?

Trust is nice, control is better.

 

[computerex]

Well said cjp - It's your decision, and I respect your beliefs. After all, it's your life. I just thought that this thread was open to discussion whether this is a real threat to personal security or not.