Pakistan is making biometric ID a requirement to receive aid for flood victims

reclaimthenet.org

11 pointsmikece4 comments

First of all, I think this could be a good idea. Assuming biometric IDs are available to all, this could prevent corruption and allow more help to reach the real victims.

Also, I find it interesting that operators of "reclaim the net", the self appointed champions of openness... are anonymous

And it might be a way for homeless people to retain some control over their ID that cannot be taken away from them, unlike an ID card, or a Yubikey, or a piece of paper with their 2FA recovery codes, or a smartphone, etc

This does not make sense. One does not have "control" over one's biometrics. The systems that maintain these correspondences belong to other people.

Also, people may want to be identifiable, and/or they may want _not_ to be identifiable. Abstract wealth---having possessions tied to ones identity---would seem to skew the balance more towards the former. Homeless people may be more likely to want the latter. The problem being pointed out here is that this system makes the latter more difficult.

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