he makes me put my hand in places i don't want

something i saw on tv this morning

a reporter asked amanda vanstone, the australian immigration minister about her opinion of the as-yet only nebulously defined identity card the goverment has recently been touting. is she in favour? the reporter asks.

this is her curious response:

Well it's a bit like saying would you like something to eat.
If you offer me a dead rat, I'll say no.
It really depends on what you put in an ID card as to whether it's effective.
...
my own view is if you don't have a biometric
encased in the card digitally
for example, a fingerprint
then the card can simply be used by someone else.

So it depends what you want to do with the card.
If you wanted to improve the management of government services
and improve service delivery,
well you don't need a biometric.

But if you want it for proof of identity then you do.

So that, for example, someone who wasn't an Australian
or wasn't entitled to Medicare
couldn't go along with someone else's card
and have a major operation done in a public hospital
on the basis that they were the person on the card.

You won't stop that sort of thing unless you've got a biometric.

ignoring the fact that biometric has not previously been a noun
we know what she means

on a completely unrelated subject
disney world florida now requires
all visitors to undertake a biometric scan



here is some surveillance porn writing
first of a coming landslide of prose
to cater to this newest of fetishes

How do I use a pass that requires finger scans?

Once your fingers are inside the scanner, you will feel a small rubber knob. Place your fingers so that the rubber knob is between the index finger and the middle finger. *LIGHTLY* bring them together so they touch the rubber knob and push your hand all the way in so the web part between your index and middle fingers touches the small plastic spindle at the very front. Do not squeeze the rubber knob tight.

crossposted with my other blog, the kippledrome.

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