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Iris-Scan ID Cards For Children In Mexico
An anonymous reader writes "Today the first ID cards that include iris and fingerprint biometric information were registered and issued in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. (Original article in Spanish.) The juicier part of the story is that for now, only children will be enrolled in this national biometric database. It is intended that by December 2012 all children in the country will be registered. The alleged purpose of the new ID card is to hinder the abduction of children and prevent child exploitation. The first ID cards are being issued in the same city that last year started implementing a mandatory iris scan for convicted felons and voluntary members of the public in a Minority Reportesque plan to combat delinquency that features iris readers in public transport and ATMs. This comes from the country that last year attempted and failed to create a national database of mobile phone users, again with the purported intention to tackle extortion and kidnappings."
"he alleged purpose of the new ID card is to hinder the abduction of children and prevent child exploitation. "
That IS it's purpose and it will help.
Whether or not you think it's worth it is a different matter.
Something everyone must understand is that this technology implementation is coming, everywhere. And it has a good purpose. Don't waste your time stopping it, use that time to get protection from abuse into law.
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ID cards help fraudsters, they provide a valid "government backed" way of proving something that is not necessarily true. How do spies have multiple identities despite these "fraud proof" ID cards? It is a scam to get people on the databases for a dark future the governments plan. Drip drip, your freedom is being taken from under your noses.
It is more worrying that they are getting at the children, so they get used to these cards and think nothing of them... then when they grow older they will blame their parents for doing nothing about the cards, and enslaving them and future generations.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
So the police can tell the Narco Gangs where you are to make kidnapping easier?
Pretty sure the Mayans weren't referring to a child-identification system when they said "...and then the world will end".
Great point.
I'd mod you up, but I want to make the counter-point that it might be preferable to legalize drugs than impose a police state on the populace.
I don't know where you think you would find your little law and order utopia, but it sure isn't here. Kidnapping (and the drug war) is a problem due to official corruption, not for lack of tagging our kids like cattle..
Outsider meddling in our domestic politics doesn't help matters any either
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"he alleged purpose of the new ID card is to hinder the abduction of children and prevent child exploitation. "
That IS it's purpose and it will help.
No, it's purpose is security theater: to make the citizens think their government is taking serious steps to combat the security problem.
How are ID cards supposed to stop children abduction or exploitation? "Crap! We can't kidnap and exploit this kid: his irises are catalogued! The police will know he's not ours! Now that kid standing NEXT to him is clearly an orphan and will be untagged. Tie him up and put him in the sweatshop, then any police who notice will think he's OUR kid, along with the other 20."
Or is it more "Stay back evildoers! I have AN ID CARD!!!"
Evildoers: "Oh no! He'll give us papercuts!"
Or is it that most of the people using/kidnapping kids are confused and think they're unclaimed children that are finders keepers?
It's a thoroughly nonsensical idea that will do nothing to stop any real problem, hence the sarcasm in the post.
"he alleged purpose of the new ID card is to hinder the abduction of children and prevent child exploitation. "
That IS it's purpose and it will help.
"Let's grab that kid and sell her as a sex slave."
"We can't! She's got an ID card."
...yeah.
This is the same thinking behind fingerprint kits, which are claimed to help keep your kid from being abducted.
Sorry; the truth of the matter is, they're only useful in identifying kids after they have been abducted, and honestly in some cases dental records would be better for that.
Thank you for showing you don't have clue. Blinded by arrogance to this day you are... And you wonder why the world doesn't bow down to you..
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Every time I read a universal biometric plan, I think of the old sci-fi book, This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. It was written in that timeless-far-future style that Asimov or Clarke would write, and it describes a day when all people had a nameber (a name/number combined) like "Bob RM04TG5002," all but a few old-timers were genetically indistinguishable by sight, and all governance was centralized into an all-knowing UniComp. Everyone had to ask UniComp for everything by touching their permanent bracelet to a scanner at every opportunity. Of course the main character was quirky and rebelled.
As a kid reading it, it really taught me the concept of willful non-conformism and individuality. Other stories like Caves of Steel touched on parts of it, but this was the central idea here. Worth a quick read if you want to grab it. Don't thank me, thank Uni.
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No, it's an excuse for tracking _everyone_. "Think of the children" has been a rallying cry for numerous attacks on civil liberties, free speech, anonymity, and a general desire to have full access to everyone's personal matters.
Most child abductions are by relatives: divorced parents pulling children across state lines because they disagree with divorce court proceedings, often with good reason, is one of the most common sources of child abduction. Tnad this will do very little about that unless the _states_ agree to exchange data and support extradition proceedings, and there are excellent cases of why this is exactly the wrong thing to do for the child.
Such "child tracking" and the necessary national tracking database for it to be effective is also a direct violation of states' rights, which have set standards for custody and child care on a state by state basis.
A large portion of children are kidnapped by family members who will not otherwise harm the child.
You can't be certain of that.
But it is particularly dangerous to compare the U.S. - where extortion abductions are almost unknown - to a country where kidnapping for profit has become big business.
Colombia was once Latin America's kidnapping capital, where Marxist guerrillas took hostages and held them for months, even years, in recondite jungle camps, using them as political bargaining chips or human shields. But in recent years, as drug cartels in Mexico have branched out into other forms of crime, kidnapping there has become a lucrative cash industry.
As kidnappings for ransom surge in Mexico, victims' families and employers turn to private U.S. firms instead of law enforcement
Your culture worships violence, crime.. your people are more violent than just about any on earth, and you should be isolated and left to your own devices.
Coming from an American... That's... interesting...
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DNA ID's are expensive. They use consumable chemicals, and drawing body fluids into a publicly accessible device presents fascinating liability and exposure issues, and they neglect the existence of "chimeras", organisms (including humans) who have multiple sets of DNA. (They're fascinating medically, usually from shared blood supples with non-identical twins before birth.)
Laser surgery to correct vision distorts the lens: that can cause profound distortion of the expected retinal image, beyond the ability of the computer to recognize the correct image. Given the number of false negativies retinal scans provide, it significantly lowers their usefulness.
Diabetic laser surger is also fascinating in its results. Do look it up. I'm afraid I'm old enough that I have acquaintances who've had such surger, and feel sure that retinal scans taken before, during, and after the retinopathy, and I've even had the opportunity to look through an opthalmoscope and actually see the changes. If they're enough for a casual observer to note, I'm sure theyre' enough to distort the results of a retinal scan.
How so? It's your broken culture that produces the violence seen here. Sure, we have some problems with violence, but nothing remotely like what's seen there. Moreover, when we glamorize violence in our Hollywood movies, it's about "good guys" shooting up "bad guys". People cheer when the criminals get killed.
In Mexico, it's the criminals who are considered heroes: http://www.khou.com/news/Narco-culture-glamorizes-violent-lifestyle-in-Mexico-and-in-Texas-116571258.html
Mexican musicians write songs ("narco corridos") about how wonderful drug traffickers are. Narco cinema glamorizes drug smuggling. Hit men record gruesome killings and upload them to YouTube. Basically, your culture thinks crime is a good thing. No nation can ever be successful when its citizens think crime and violence against innocents is something to be respected and cherished.
There is something fundamentally broken about your culture and your people, and if I had my way, you would have no contact with anyone else in the world.
It's your broken culture that produces the violence seen here. Sure, we have some problems with violence, but nothing remotely like what's seen there.
*cough* Yeah, we know. You've off shored that too.
I don't believe I've ever seen anybody so swallowed up in the media trap. You are so high on the blue pill you literally don't see beyond your own skin. One thing you do show, your politicians are made in your image... Thank you for a most educational perspective. Pero huele muy feo el pedorro
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Counted sheep are eaten by wolfs too.
Say I am a kidnapper. Do you think that I would care whether your kid has ID, a cellphone and a personal tracer? I will still take your kid. If it is for money, those items will be easier for me to determine the price. If it is for personal lust, then those items could be seen as trophies or as lust.
In Belgium many kids have ID cards and phones. Kids still disappear. The majority because they run away from home. Then there are those that are kidnapped by the other parent.
The absolute minority gets kidnapped, raped and murdered (single digits in numbers, not even percentages) by strangers.
Most abuse towards children AND adults is by people they know. There also those cards won't help anything.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.