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America Is The 4th Worst Abuser Of Biometric Privacy Rights In The World

January 15, 2020

America Is The 4th Worst Abuser Of Biometric Privacy Rights In The World

credit: Comparitech

Does anyone really believe America is still the land of the free? 
Since 9/11, DHS, the FBI, the CIA, and countless other alphabet soup agencies have turned the United States into a public surveillance monstrosity.
In 19 years, one terrorist attack has done what no one else could have dreamed of: turn America’s freedoms into a distant memory.
Abusing citizen’s rights and privacy used to be the hallmark of dictatorships and police states like the CCCP or North Korea.
A recent study conducted by Comparitech, rated 50 countries from best to worst at protecting citizen’s biometric data.
The study found that America is one of the world’s worst abusers of citizen’s biometric privacy.

“While China topping the list perhaps doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, residents of (and travelers to) other countries may be surprised and concerned at the extent of biometric information that is being collected on them and what is happening to it afterward.”

This really should not come as a surprise, because last year Comparitech revealed that American and Chinese cities lead the world in spying on their citizens. Last week, I wrote an article explaining how 2019 would go down as the year that facial recognition and corporate surveillance became commonplace in America.

Comparitech’s recent study on biometric privacy compared how 50 countries collect and use data to identify innocent people:

  • Many countries collect travelers’ biometric data, often through visas or biometric checks at airports
  • Every country we studied is using biometrics for bank accounts, e.g. fingerprints to access online app data and/or to confirm identities within the banks themselves
  • Despite many countries recognizing biometric data as sensitive, increased biometric use is widely accepted
  • Facial recognition CCTV is being implemented in a large number of countries, or at least being tested

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Ring & Rekognition Set the Stage for Consumer Generated Mass Surveillance

February 5, 2019

How Ring & Rekognition Set the Stage for Consumer Generated Mass Surveillance

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If every home on a street, in a neighborhood, or in a town had a Ring surveillance system, the individual cameras, taken together, could construct an extremely intimate picture of daily public life. By integrating facial recognition and contracting with local and federal law enforcement agencies, Amazon supercharges the potential for its massive network of surveillant consumers to comprehensively track the movements of individuals over time, even when the individual has not broken any law. Fully realized, these technologies set the stage for consumer generated mass surveillance.

Amazon’s Ring surveillance system dominates the growing video doorbell market. Ring, acquired by Amazon last April, is a system of home surveillance doorbell cameras which operate on an integrated social media platform, Neighbors. Neighbors allows users to share camera footage with other users and law enforcement agencies, as well as report safety issues, strangers, or suspicious activities. The platform aggregates user-generated reports and video data into a local activity maps and watchlists. Similar community platforms where neighbors can report suspicious persons or activity, such as NextDoor, are notorious for racial bias and profiling. This problem will surely be made worse by Amazon’s desire to automatically classify persons as “suspicious” through sentiment analysis and other biometric data collection.

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A recent patent application shows that Amazon will integrate their facial recognition product Rekognition into the Ring system, while also collecting and analyzing a litany of other biometric information. Many raise serious concerns about the integration of facial recognition to our contemporary digital ecosystem. Indeed, a unique consensus among researchers, lawmakers, advocates, and technology companies that facial recognition technology amplifies bias, intensifies mass surveillance and ought be subject to stringent regulation. [For more WJLTA coverage on algorithmic bias, see here.]

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

India’s Big Brother: Fingerprint and Eye Scans Required for Food and Medicine

April 10, 2018

India collects biometric data on 1.3 billion residents for use in a nationwide identity system called Aadhaar.

The New York Times notes Big Brother has Arrived in India.

Seeking to build an identification system of unprecedented scope, India is scanning the fingerprints, eyes and faces of its 1.3 billion residents and connecting the data to everything from welfare benefits to mobile phones.

Civil libertarians are horrified, viewing the program, called Aadhaar, as Orwell’s Big Brother brought to life. To the government, it’s more like “big brother,” a term of endearment used by many Indians to address a stranger when asking for help.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other champions of the program say that Aadhaar is India’s ticket to the future, a universal, easy-to-use ID that will reduce this country’s endemic corruption and help bring even the most illiterate into the digital age.

The poor must scan their fingerprints at the ration shop to get their government allocations of rice. Retirees must do the same to get their pensions. Middle-school students cannot enter the water department’s annual painting contest until they submit their identification.

The Modi government has also ordered Indians to link their IDs to their cellphone and bank accounts.

Although the system’s core fingerprint, iris and face database appears to have remained secure, at least 210 government websites have leaked other personal data — such as name, birth date, address, parents’ names, bank account number and Aadhaar number — for millions of Indians. Some of that data is still available with a simple Google search.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Biometric data collection evolves and expands in Canada

June 5, 2015

Biometric data collection evolves and expands in Canada

Ottawa wants to collect data from visitors of 150 countries, up from the current 30

The federal government’s plan to increase its collection of biometric data from visitors to Canada has been met with concern, but the practice is already a large part of our day-to-day lives.

Biometrics measure a person’s unique physiological characteristics — including face, iris, retinal veins, fingerprints, voice and hand geometry — to verify identity.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada told CBC News that digital photos and fingerprints are “the only biometrics data applicants will have to provide” under the government’s plan for expanded collection of data. Visitors will have to pay $85 to cover the cost of data collection.

Here are some ways that biometrics already touch our lives.

How it works now

The government currently collects the biometric data of foreign nationals from 29 countries and one territory. For an $85 fee, a visitor’s fingers are scanned on a glass screen and their digital photo is taken. Exemptions include those under 14 or over 80 years of age, as well as diplomats.

New regulations expected by 2018-19 would expand screening to include visitors from about 150 more countries, including those visitors who need visas, work or study permits. Americans are exempt.

Move to biometrics launched in 2008

The government first announced it was moving to biometrics in 2008 because they are more reliable than the use of subjective photo identification.

The 2008 budget said, “Border security remains a priority for Canadians. Criminals are increasingly more sophisticated and well-funded, including those who engage in document fraud to illegally move people or goods across borders.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

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