I had an odd experience today. I know that there is a lot of talk and paranoia on the Internet these days about how much guvmints know about us, and whether they should know that much, but it's never really concerned me because I've always assumed that I was too boring for any guvmint to become interested in enough to want to track me.
Well, it turns out I was right. I can officially tell you that I am on no "watchlists" maintained by any major guvmint, for any reason whatsoever. I know this because today I had to go to the Immigration Dept. to get my Dutch resident ID card renewed. In the past it's been mainly a formality -- take a new photo, get a new card, outa there. But this time, they told me I'd have to report first to "Biometrics." So I did, waited for a bit, and then a *remarkably* nice guvmint official verified that my renewal papers had arrived in the mail and then walked me into the Biometrics Room. I know that's what it was called because there was a sign over the door that said this. :-) He sat me down at one of two science fiction-inspired machines, on which I had to first look into the screen while it took my photo, and then allow it to take my fingerprints and sign my signature. Electronically, of course -- no muss, no fuss. I was finished in a little over a minute and then he walked me back to his desk and looked at the results on his own computer monitor. He said, "That looks OK...no red flags," and then said my new ID would be ready in about a week. But he really *was* a remarkably nice guvmint official, so I told him I worked with computers and was curious about this "Biometrics" thang and asked him to explain it to me. He did, even showing me his computer screen occasionally so I could see what he did. It was spooky. The moment that scifi machine took my photo, the biometrics of my face were instantly recorded and compared against all known databases of "bad faces," those presumably belonging to terrorists or known criminals. My fingerprints and signature got the same electronic scrutiny. All in the time it took for me to walk back to this guy's cubicle. Fortunately, I got no "red flags," and so my new ID card is in the mail. But I can't help but wonder what would have happened if my pleasing but aging face had had similar biometrics to the face of a known terrorist. I suspect that if that had happened, I would be in a cell somewhere, and wouldn't be writing this. :-) Anyway, this was a very science fiction movie day for me. I got to find out first-hand that a lot of that "science fiction stuff" we see on TV and in movies isn't fiction. In less than two minutes, the Dutch guvmint scanned all my "biometrics" and decided that I was cool to renew as a resident. I can't help but be impressed by the tech behind that, even if as a computer scientist I know how terribly badly it could have gone if one of the Dutch programmers who built this system was a fuckup.
