From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Dec 18 2002 - 23:00:00 MST
The Iron Maiden is closing on freedom from involuntary search
and seizure, freedom to live one's life without a blow-by-blow
accounting to the state, freedom to simply be left alone. A
large assist for world-wide tyranny is here heing constructed.
Notice that is being done in the name of a relatively small
blight in the world, child pornography. So all of us, in all
developed countries, are supposed to be absolutely trackable to
stop child pornography?!?! Is any person with IQ over 90
actually swayed by such a gratuitous excuse?
I am very sad to say that it is probably already too late. Too
few even see the danger. Too many that should no better welcome
it and cheer it on. Too many of the rest thing it can never
lead to any arm for them.
- samantha
Amara Graps wrote:
> Eugen Leitl
>
>> What's worth, the G8 want to implement biometrics. I guess voting alone
>> isn't enough.
>
>
> (more info)
>
> G8 Countries Call for Biometric Data of all Travelers to be Recorded and
> Stored
> [12.12.2002 12:08 ]
>
>
> The eight industrial countries that regularly meet as the G8
> Group[1] intend to make the security industry a gift of a very
> special kind. Nothing less than the upgrading of the passports of
> all travelers worldwide with biometric features is what the grand
> get-together has in mind. heise online is on possession of a
> planning protocol to that effect confirming the "universality,"
> "urgency" and "technical reliability" of the concept.
>
> The immigration experts of the group of states have already agreed
> on an initial list of principles. This -- together with projects to
> create a comprehensive databank about the exchange of child
> pornography, as well as projects on the employment of undercover
> investigators -- is to be completed during the first meeting of the
> group of major powers under the future presidency of France at the
> beginning of 2003 and then implemented with the aid of international
> standardization bodies. In the paper the G8 working group
> emphatically recommends the development of a "complete, common
> technical interoperability standard," upon the basis of which all
> nations of this world are to introduce the machine-reading of
> identity papers with biometric features. The working group reckons
> that this measure will enhance the capacity to fight international
> terrorism. At the same time the experts are fanning the fear that a
> delay in the implementation of such a global, interoperable system
> would "unnecessarily increase the risks to our populations."
>
> In devising the standard the immigration body is working together
> with the International Civil Aviation Authority ICAO. That
> Montreal-based body of the UN has for years now, as a driving force
> behind the moves to harmonize passport types and systems, been a
> vigorous proponent of facial features recognition as a global
> biometrics feature. Fingerprint recognition and iris scanning too
> are, according to the G8 report, being "actively" surveyed.
>
> The G8 suggestions read in large part like a massive brochure of the
> growth industry that has sprung up around biometrics, which ever
> since September 11th can hope to garner major orders of ever
> increasing size. The costs alone of building the infrastructure that
> will ensure the readability of visas with biometric features, which
> will be officially required to enter the United States from next
> year on, are calculated to amount to 3.2 billion US dollars. "We
> have become convinced," the G8 working group writes, "that biometric
> authentication is able to enhance the individual's private sphere,
> ease travelling and improve security." However, "proper"
> implementation was called for, they added. "Careful scientific
> tests" should be carried out to permit the "enormous promise"
> inherent in biometric technologies to be realized.
>
> Assurances of this kind have been given for years- yet tests
> repeatedly show that biometrics technologies cannot as yet be
> applied within the framework of large-scale projects. "The
> technology suitable for mass consumption for identifying and
> authenticating the identity of persons on the basis of their
> physical features is obviously still in its infancy," was the final
> conclusion reached by c't´s editors when they examined a range of
> eleven distinct biometric access protection devices[2] and their
> programs this spring. Indeed, during a field test by the Pentagon
> the FaceIt software by Visionics failed in 51 percent of cases. The
> head of BioTrusT (a project supported by the German Federal
> Government) Henning Arendt on the other hand estimates the average
> failure rate of facial feature recognition systems to amount to
> "only" about ten percent. For him it would be "inconceivable,"
> though, for every tenth person to be forced in future to face
> problems when crossing a border.
>
> "Besides the question of suitability for every-day use and of
> security, many legal implications" were "still to a large extent
> unclear," the Research Committee of the Bundestag, Germany's lower
> chamber of parliament, concluded in its introduction to the Report
> on biometric identification systems by the Office of Technology
> Assessment. Data watchdogs, moreover, warn against piling up
> uncontrollable mountains of data, point to the dangerous possibility
> of ethnic screening and highlight the threat of camouflaged
> investigations being introduced.
>
> Nevertheless, the German Federal Government as early as a year ago
> laid the foundations with its controversial second package of
> anti-terrorist legislation for incorporating biometric features in
> identity papers in machine-readable form. At the time the data
> watchdogs had vigorously protested against the plan to fingerprint
> and photograph the entire population and had argued by way of
> criticism that biometric mass mobilization was an unsuitable means
> of fighting terrorism; as, for instance, the 9-11 suicide suspects
> had been in possession of valid US visas. Systems for monitoring
> citizens more closely still are nevertheless still gaining ground.
> Thus, for instance, the new EU visas, which from April 2003 onwards
> will also be issued in Germany, are already calibrated to conform to
> biometrics. What is more, the Interior Minister of the German
> federal state of Bavaria, Günther Beckstein, this November presented
> automatic facial features recognition projects in operation at the
> border crossing points of Waidhausen and Nürnberg airport. (Stefan
> Krempl) / (Robert W. Smith) / (jk[3]/c't)
>
>
> URL of this article:
> http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/data/jk-12.12.02-002/
>
> Links in this article:
> [1] http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/
> [2] http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/11/114/
> [3] mailto:jk@ct.heise.de
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:47 MST