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I didn't have to give any biometrics away when I got my passport last year.

Germany takes finger prints of both index fingers when getting a passport. Not all ten fingers like at the US border.

And they're supposed to only store the data temporarily until it gets put on the passport chip (i.e. not go into the database).

Of course there's no way to verify that, but I generally have a bit more trust in German authoroties.

(you can also travel widely with just an ID card which doesn't get the biometrics, although that does limit you to Europe.)