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> After all, racism is rarely fact-based. But the impression that they know people's race, whether the DNA gathered are used in that determination or not (I vo

> After all, racism is rarely fact-based. But the impression that they know people's race, whether the DNA gathered are used in that determination or not (I vote not, since it's more expensive than a machete), is likely to help the case of whatever regime thinks it up. Also, my emphasis was more on the detractors can be silenced perfectly bit. You can see the accompanying legislation coming, requiring social media and other communications infrastructure to be authenticated with the state id.

bayesian_horse 8y ago
In my opinion it is much more viable to stop a government from abusing data than to stop the government having access to the data. Some biometric modalities like fingerprints, DNA and face images are quite literally "broadcast" by everyone. In many cases, government access to certain data is not a problem if you can trust the government. If you can't trust the government, you have a bigger problem. In the case of knowing who is which ethnicity and lives where in the African context, you can easily construct a scenario where they could round up a particular ethnicity. Or they just ask the locals. In another scenario, if Group A is directing violence towards Group B, the government instantly knows where to send forces to stop it.