Data Collection 2.0 aka Defcon 3

Data Collection 2.0 aka Defcon 3

 Said the Wall Street Journal, “More companies and government agencies out in the wild want to read our body parts. The Transportation Security Administration, for example, started scanning passengers’ faces instead of checking IDs. These groups say the biometric processes are meant to eliminate friction, save time and reduce lines.”

Why is that always the party line? To make our lives easier? To save us time? Does it? Ask anyone who has been a victim of identity theft, and remember “the huge Facebook data breach, in which upwards of 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries had personal data leaked online, including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, birthdates — you name it,” The Verge reported. Not that Facebook even bothered to tell users.

Yes, your phone has your fingerprint or faceprint. Fine, that’s native to your phone – or so they say. What about once the info is sent to the cloud? Cybersecurity is not top of mind for many tech companies, as we well know by the number of hacks reported and that continue to be reported and FYI, Ransomware Attacks Reach Record Highs: Demands and Payments Continue to Soar – and are we even informed about what data of ours might have been compromised?

While the current systems require that one be physically present – the palm signature at Wholefoods and the facial recognition systems on TSA lines – what happens when this moves online, especially with the growing sophistication of deep fakes, whose usage may be more commonplace than you might have suspected, considering that 1 in 10 Minors Say Their Friends Use AI to Generate Nudes of Other Kids, Survey Finds.

What happens when the state hackers get into the photo and fingerprint banks? Just last month, we witnessed a massive data breach of some 2.9 billion records, included Social Security numbers.

“Everything online is stored and waiting for the next smarter criminal and we keep being told by marketers it can’t happen and then it happens, again and again,” noted one commenter in the WSJ piece.

And given the pace and invasiveness of technology at present, who’d have thought that the current  global chip shortage might actually be a good thing?

It may be time to apply the brakes.

We know that many people feel that they already know everything there is to know about you, but biometrics are as personal as it gets and the last frontier. What man cannot remember – or chooses not to take seriously – he is doomed to repeat. And if this new level of data collection is being done for our convenience and security, litmus test ahead – why isn’t any sort of ID required for, say, voting?

Bill Gates chimed in with yet another incursion into our privacy,  this time advocating for the use of digital IDs to stop the spread of ‘misinformation,’ using the example of yelling ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater to make his point and note to self, Yes, you can yell “fire” in a crowded theater, so Bill, seems you haven’t done your homework.

Again.

And speaking of never let a good ‘crisis’ go to waste: Big Tech’s Latest “Fix” for AI Panic Is To Push a Digital ID Agenda.

The powers that be sure are hungry for more information on us, right down to our very biology. The question is why? In this case, it’s certainly not just to sell you another pair of shoes, as was supposedly the case in the Age of Social.  Considering that as we’ve long known – that we are the product – and that some things never change, it seems that what they’re selling us this time around is nothing more than a bill of goods. Onward and forward.

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