Privacy Issues

Ugh. It was going so well and then I fell into a black hole of non-blogging in October. Climbing back up on that horse, here is my first post on the first of November. (Of course, it is no longer the first day of November, but I did try.) From dw-word.de

I was hoping he wouldn't say it, but he did. "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about." Bad politician, bad. Once again, a western politician invokes the fear of terrorism and uses it to try and crush discussion and critical thought.

The topic:

Digital fingerprints encoded on German passports.

Yuck!

This honestly makes me cringe. The more I learn about how easy it is for electronic scanners to gather information about us the more I want to toss my cell phone. Someone with a portable scanner could casually walk by and learn exactly who you are - it will also allow a store to greet you personally when you walk in.

But digital fingerprints - that takes possibilities for identity theft to a whole new level. Imagine you visit a hotel in a foreign country and they ask for your passport at check-in (which they often do). A quick scan and they have access to your fingerprints in the form of a computer file - how easy is that?

I also have concerns about the construction of a ginormous database that police organization and governments would have access to with fingerprints. It feels more than a little creepy.

For me, it's right up there with electronic voting machines.