Comment by bsimpson
6 months ago
For years, I resisted TSA Pre check on principle, even though I was a frequent traveler. I finally relented when I realized there were places like Thailand that force you to give your biometrics, and almost certainly sell them back to shadowy US agencies.
They might not be competent enough
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3300568/thai...
Thailand has a big problem with identity theft, and another big problem with Chinese criminal syndicates committing various kinds of scams and fraud. So while they might share that biometric data with US government agencies, it seems more likely to me that at least one identity theft racket has acquired some of it.
> places like Thailand that force you to give your biometrics
You're being returned the favor! Anyone that's ever entered the US has had to do the same, and our prints are being stored in a DHS database.
Out of curiosity, did you not need to provide prints to get a passport in the first place? I can't image a single developed country without biometric passports.
A US passport does not require fingerprints or any other biometric data, aside from a photograph.
Fingerprints are not required in the UK to apply for a passport (for UK citizens who didn't apply for naturalisation etc). Biometric doesn't just mean fingerprints.