The European Court of Justice ruled having fingerprints on ID cards was legal under EU privacy laws. The benefits of having such a system were key to preventing identity theft, it said.
They do not store the features themselves. When the passport is made, a reader takes those features, makes checksums of them, and stores the checksums on the passport along with a signature to make sure they haven’t been tampered with.
When you present the passport, another reader takes in your features and makes checksums of them. Then a computer compares the checksums with the ones on the passport, checks the signatures, and says yeah, this person is the one the passport was issued to.
None of this requires your features or your identity to be stored anywhere, it’s done on the spot whenever needed.
There’s other information on the passport (a unique identifier) that can be used to obtain other data about you if needed, but to tie the passport to you none of that is needed.
Almost all the passports around the world include biometric as well.
How so?
If you see this symbol on your passport, it’s biometric.
These passports are storing your fingerprint, iris scan and facial ID features. Very few countries don’t use these kind of passport.
They do not store the features themselves. When the passport is made, a reader takes those features, makes checksums of them, and stores the checksums on the passport along with a signature to make sure they haven’t been tampered with.
When you present the passport, another reader takes in your features and makes checksums of them. Then a computer compares the checksums with the ones on the passport, checks the signatures, and says yeah, this person is the one the passport was issued to.
None of this requires your features or your identity to be stored anywhere, it’s done on the spot whenever needed.
There’s other information on the passport (a unique identifier) that can be used to obtain other data about you if needed, but to tie the passport to you none of that is needed.
this is exactly how the Worldcoin Orb works but people lose their mind over it