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Comment by prepend | Hacker News Reader

Why do people want to opt out? This perplexes me as “the government” already has scans of your face. So these devices aren’t used to collect data.

I’m also perplexed when my parent won’t give the State department their SSN, but received SSN benefits, and Medicare, and pays taxes to the IRS. They say they don’t want “the government” to have their data, but oddly think the government doesn’t already have a dossier on them.

I love the scans as they speed up security. I traveled recently, internationally to and from the US and it was nice to just scan my face and show my passport and not need to scan my qrcode boarding pass.

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"The government" is not a monolithic entity that has instant access to all data stored by all branches.

The more places your SSN is stored, the higher the likelihood of that information being misused by those with "legitimate" access, or stolen by malicious actors.

The same thing applies to pretty much anything about you (name, DOB, address, etc.), which should be sufficient reason alone to not want it spread around more than absolutely necessary.

The State department isn’t collecting it for random reasons or for use as an identifier. It collects it for diplomatic purposes. So it is limited for a specific purpose.

I agree that SSN shouldn’t be collected inappropriately, but for purposes where it’s necessary, complaining that “the government” doesn’t need it, is silly, I think.

Diplomatic purposes? What does that mean? And what about people without an SSN?

> This perplexes me as “the government” already has scans of your face. So these devices aren’t used to collect data.

Citation extremely needed. Why would the government have a preexisting scan of my face?

Driver’s license. Passport. Student id. Employment id (for the millions employed by the government). Etc etc etc

Not to mention the data legally purchased from data brokers and illegally captured by NSA/etc.

Photo != Biometric scan

Yes, when it comes to face scanners at the airport. You’re standing in front of a government camera for a driver’s license or student id and it can (and likely will) take the same image data that the TSA cameras do.

A high rez image is a type of biometric scan if you’re using it for facial recognition.

> Yes, when it comes to face scanners at the airport. You’re standing in front of a government camera for a driver’s license or student id and it can (and likely will) take the same image data that the TSA cameras do. This is wrong. The TSA cameras are steroscopic and capture significantly more detail.

Additionally, there is no oversight or information given about how that data will be used, sold, how long it will be kept for, etc.

If you want to be entirely complacent that's your choice. But it isn't 'silly' for those of us that understand what's going on to oppose it, and it's disingenuous to easy because we have drivers licenses there is no reason to oppose it.

This is wrong. The TSA cameras are steroscopic and capture significantly more detail.

Additionally, there is no oversight or information given about how that data will be used, sold, how long it will be kept for, etc.

Never had relatives genocided by governments, eh?

Many. And having my social collected by the IRS does not impact my or my existing family’s chances of genocide.

Well, I'm glad for you, your belief in institutions outweighs any historical truth. Must be nice.

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