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Comment by pilif | Hacker News Reader

In the country where I live (Switzerland), getting a drivers license thankfully does not involve somebody taking your fingerprint. Also, public transportation here rules to such an extent that not even having a drivers license is a perfectly valid option. I don't have one for example.

My passport also is one of the last ones you could get without it containing any biometric data.

As such, I'm reasonably sure that no third-party ever had access to my fingerprint. And I'd love for it to stay like this (see my parent comment for the reasons why)

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Why do you care if anybody gets your fingerprint, if you have already decided nobody can be trusted with your fingerprint and thus will never trust fingerprint based authentication? Once you are at that point, it's like your eye color or something. I don't care if other people get my eye color, because I will never use it to authenticate.

I'd hypothesise it's more likely somebody will use your fingerprint to identify you than your eye colour. For example, at a crime scene if your fingerprints are found you can hardly say "oh, I don't trust my fingerprint so I won't authenticate with it, ignore that" - like it or not, it's seen as being at least something to investigate. On the flip side I imagine a witness who reports only "green eyes" won't have their case followed for very long.

So... what is the fear here? That someone will steal your fingerprints and plant them at a crime scene?

I don't agree with the fear, I'm just saying it's more likely somebody can be nefarious with your fingerprints than other things, regardless of whether you personally authenticate with them. For what it's worth, I don't agree there's an issue - I just don't think it's reasonable to compare fingeprints and eye colour.

Not the OP, but think a about it this way: your fingerprint is now in a central database backed-up by lots of processing power so someone can match it pretty quickly and, all of a sudden, you realize you can no longer commit anything "bad", ever, because "they" may catch you based on the data they have about you.

And to someone who may ask me "why would you want the freedom to do something bad?" I'll answer that three of the biggest monotheistic religions are based on a guy a girl who were allowed to do bad things (Adam and Eve). I'm agnostic myself but I find it pretty self-explanatory nevertheless , you just can't impose the lack of free-will on people.

you can no longer commit anything "bad", ever, because "they" may catch you

Is it just me, or is HN getting really frikkin' paranoid?

to someone who may ask me "why would you want the freedom to do something bad?"

I think you're over-reaching.

I think that is over-reaching, too.

But pragmatically, the more data they have, the more likely you are to show up as a false positive. Worst case; you handle something in a hardware store and it's later made into a bomb by a third party. You're going to need a solid alibi for that one.

Or you get placed at the scene of a protest even though you weren't present for it. Now you're on the terrorist list.

Additionally they can catch you more easily for victimless crimes, like if your fingerprints are on a bong they collect. I figure it's easy enough for them to stick you with a felony even without actively helping them get more data. So I'm trying to minimize the felonies I can be stuck with.

I fully agree with you and for the exact reasoning (as a Canadian).

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