The Mark of the Biometrics

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing / ‘Cause I’ve built my life around you / But time makes you bolder / Even children get older / And I’m getting older too – Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

The Mark of the Biometrics: More than a billion Indians now have a biometric-based 12-digit personal identification number called Aadhaar, which means “foundation” in Hindi. The digital identity program was started as a voluntary means to suppress benefit fraud. But some worry the idea of using single number identity systems for everything has pitfalls.

Most countries collect biometric information only for visitors, not their own citizens. Israel has a smart card identification system, where data stays on the card and no fingerprints are taken. California and Colorado fingerprint drivers’ license applications. The UK toyed with the idea of a national identity card linked to biometric information, but abandoned the idea in 2010. Today China, Venezuela, Iraq, the Philippines, and some African countries connect bank accounts and voter registration to biometrics.

It is impossible to guarantee that a centralized government-controlled database of biometric and genomic data will never be breached. A compromised bank account or credit card can be closed. But a person cannot change their genetic data or fingerprints in response to a leak. Authoritarian regimes can collect biometric data as a means of surveilling whole populations. In the Xinjiang region of China, DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans, and blood types of everyone  aged 12 to 65 are being collected and linked to household registration cards. Combine a biometric database with facial recognition software and CCTV cameras, and a government has an unprecedented level of control over its citizenry.

There is enough concern already in India about the pitfalls associated with Aadhaar that its Supreme Court has before it numerous petitions challenging the registration system.

-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked for months trying to find countries that would agree to accept some 37,000 African migrants who had trekked across the Sinai desert to Israel and asked to stay. But alas, no luck. Now he wants to put the migrants in the very detention centers Israel’s Supreme Court already ordered shut down once before. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. (Reuters)

-A powerful Indonesian politician, who had managed for decades to be slip slidin’ away from a  variety of corruption scandals, finally heard the music stop. On Tuesday the top anti-corruption court sentenced Setya Novanto to 15 years in prison for embezzling more than $170 million from a national identity card program. When asked whether he’d accept the result or appeal, Novanto crooned “I will have to think about it.” (NYT)

-Who ya gonna believe? Me or those lying flight records? Twice President Trump told former FBI agent James Comey he hadn’t stayed overnight at any time during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant being held in Moscow. But then, Bloomberg got hold of the flight records, and…“Oops! I Did it Again.” (Bloomberg)

-But What if I Want to Buy a Genuine Egyptian Artifact? With summer’s tourism season fast approaching, Egypt’s parliament has passed a law allowing authorities to fine anyone found pestering travelers “with the intention of begging or promoting, offering or selling a good or service.” (The Guardian)

-Tensions are high in the Eastern Aegean islands between Greeks and migrants trying to make their way to Europe via Turkey. The welcome for the growing refugee population is wearing out and far-right anti-immigration groups are fanning frustrations. A violent confrontation broke out Sunday on the island of Lesbos, which seems it should be more tolerant. (NYT)

-A New York Times’ book review focuses on Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Texas native  Lawrence Wright’s new book “GOD SAVE TEXAS, A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State.” Wright explores why Texas, which is growing at twice the rate of California, with a GDP larger than most industrialized countries, should be a solid blue state, but whose governing philosophy is a dream come true for the far right and evangelical agenda. Young professionals pour in to take high-paying jobs, but it’s older white voters who always make it to the polls. Big money has attracted world-class museums, restaurants, and architecture. Yet the state still scrapes bottom in categories ranging from health care access to educational achievement. Even so, Wright insists, like it or not, America’s future runs through Texas. (NYT)

–A third federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restart Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and to accept new applicants to the program. On Tuesday, US district judge John Bates wrote that the decision to end DACA was “virtually unexplained” and that he would stay the order for 90 days to allow the Department of Homeland Security an opportunity to “better explain” its decision. (The Guardian)

More News Reads:

• Trump and France’s Macron seek new measures on Iran as deadline looms(Reuters)
• Busloads of migrants from ‘caravan’ arrive at U.S.-Mexico border (Reuters)
• UN warns Idlib could be next Syrian disaster zone in ‘marathon of pain’ (The Guardian)
• WhatsApp to raise minimum age limit to 16 in EU (BBC)
• Trump rallies behind VA nominee after suggesting he drop out because of ‘ugly’ process (Washington Post)

Plastic People and Our Plastic World: Researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) studied samples of Arctic sea ice taken from five locations in 2014 and 2015. Their recent report, called a “benchmark study” by a sea ice physicist at the British Antarctic Survey, found record levels of plastic trapped in the core samples, nearly three times the levelsfound in previous studies. The report also identified likely sources, from degraded fishing equipment to plastic pollution that had traveled thousands of miles on ocean currents. Every sample had fragments of packaging, paints, nylon, polyester, and cellulose acetate which is commonly used in making cigarette filters. The huge amounts of polyethylene in one area is thought to have come from the massive “garbage patch” in the Pacific Ocean.

Fish and birds frequently mistake the plastic particles for food, which not only damages marine life, but allows entry into the human food chain. Data collected by scientists from the US, France, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand over a six-year period from 2007 to 2013 suggested more than five trillion plastic pieces, collectively weighing nearly 269,000 tons, floated in the world’s oceans. The AWI report now indicates microplastic particles are ubiquitous within the surface waters of the world’s oceans. It also appears to confirm what experts feared: the scale of plastic pollution is a near-permanent contamination of the natural environment.  

Additional Read: ‘Mountains and mountains of plastic’: Life on Cambodia’s polluted coast (The Guardian)

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-“Even as [the United States] is becoming worse in obvious ways—angrier, more divided, less able to do the basic business of governing itself—it is becoming distinctly better on a range of other indicators that are harder to perceive. The pattern these efforts create also remains hidden. Americans don’t realize how fast the country is moving toward becoming a better version of itself.” (The Atlantic)

–In Japan, you can now hire a wife, a mother, a grandson. It sounds downright creepy, but the relationships that result might be much more real and meaningful than you would expect. The founder of Family Romance, one of a number of agencies in Japan that rent out “replacement relatives,” said that he aims for outcomes in which the rental family makes itself redundant in the client’s life. His goal is ‘to bring about a society where no one needs our service.’” (The New Yorker)

-“We leave traces of our genetic material everywhere, even on things we’ve never touched. That got Lukis Anderson charged with a brutal crime he didn’t commit.” (The Marshall Project)

-A smartphone app designed by a company called Propel lets food stamp recipients easily look up how much money is left in their accounts. Today, one million food stamp participants use this app, but in the last few months, it has been unavailable in many states. Behind the slowdown is a big government contractor, Conduent, which runs the food stamp networks in 25 states. In those states, where 60 percent of Propel’s users live, Conduent maintains the database that Propel’s app uses to let people check their accounts. (NYT)

-“The Nazis idolized many aspects of American society: the cult of sport, Hollywood production values, the mythology of the frontier. From boyhood on, Hitler devoured the Westerns of the popular German novelist Karl May. In 1928, Hitler remarked, approvingly, that white settlers in America had ‘gunned down the millions of redskins to a few hundred thousand.’ When he spoke of Lebensraum, the German drive for ‘living space’ in Eastern Europe, he often had America in mind.” (The New Yorker)

–Studies have shown that we are really bad at assessing our own competence and abilities, which in turn leads us to overestimate them. This is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which goes like this: The less skilled you are at something, the less likely you are to recognize how unskilled you really are, and thus you overestimate your abilities. (NYT)

-“K,” “Kinda,” and “Like” – a few words that you should get rid of in order to become a better communicator. (Entrepreneur)

• The myth of an ending: why even removing Trump from office won’t save American democracy It feels like this moment in history deserves a definitive ending. It won’t get one. (Vox)
• The Hardest Job in the World. What if the problem isn’t the president—it’s the presidency? (The Atlantic)
• Michael Cohen case shines light on Sean Hannity’s property empire (The Guardian)
• People Voted for Trump Because They Were Anxious, Not Poor. A new study finds that Trump voters weren’t losing income or jobs. Instead, they were concerned about their place in the world. (The Atlantic)
• McMaster and Commander: Can a national-security adviser retain his integrity if the President has none? (The New Yorker)
• Inside Rex Tillerson’s Ouster: The Last Days of His Brief and Chaotic Tenure as Secretary of State (The New Yorker)  

• Google’s Parent Company Spends Like It’s Thinking of a Future Beyond Ads(NYT)
• What Might Happen to Amazon’s Profit if It Paid Its Workers More? (NYT)
• Cambridge University rejected Facebook study over ‘deceptive’ privacy standards (The Guardian)
• What’s Not Included in Facebook’s ‘Download Your Data’ (Wired)
• How Looming Privacy Regulations May Strengthen Facebook and Google(NYT)
• Facebook starts its facial recognition push to Europeans (Tech Crunch)
• Netflix Apparently Wants to Buy Its Own Theaters, and That’s Honestly a Good Idea (Gizmodo)

“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.” – Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

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