A System To Read Your Fingerprints... from 6ft away

I can see this one ending in tears if there are no PROPER security controls to prevent the theft of the fingerprint databases that this system would accumulate. Add to this yet one more level of intrusion into your 'presence privacy'.

Let me qualify that a bit further. However, before I do that a couple of simple questions for you to ponder.

Do you have a right to privacy when you are in a public place?

Do you believe in the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty'?

Do you think 'I have nothing to hide so what is the problem?' ?

Now...

Scenario A: No ID system. No knowledge you were 'there'. 'Something' happens. You did nothing wrong. No-one can identify you and no-one contacts you to ask you what happened or if you were involved.

Scenario B: ID system. Someone has knowledge you were 'there'. 'Something' happens. You did nothing wrong. Someone identifies who you are and contacts you to ask you asking you questions relating to what happened or if you were involved.

Scenario C: ID system. Someone has knowledge you were 'there'. 'Something' happens. You did nothing wrong. Someone identifies who you are and contacts you. They determine, using whatever logic or reasoning, that you are a potential candidate for having done 'something'. You are directly or indirectly 'flagged' as being 'a person who did something'.

Now the above scenarios do not even mention a crime, just 'something happening'. At what level should you be in the least bit concerned? By the fact someone knows you were in a specific supermarket and bought a specific brand of cheese? That you 'Liked' someones comment on a subject with Facebook? That someone knows you were in a specific place at a specific time and asks you questions about this?

They are all worthy of thought. What is worth thinking about even more is this scenario:

Scenario D: The 'something happened' is a serious criminal act and you are directly implicated by 'solid evidence' that you were the only person who could have committed the act as no-one else was there and 'your fingerprints were found at the site'...

What is also worthy of thought is that your digital identity can be used to implicate you in 'something happened' when you were not there....

It is why people should be asking more searching questions of those who they entrust their personal data with...