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European Citizens' Initiative for a ban on biometric mass surveillance

280 points by hacka22 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
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beyondcompute 6y ago
Good news! Sounds like a great initiative.
bsaul 6y ago
I'm surprised they ask for my personal physical address for signing the petition. An email with a first name last name should be enough. After all, how can i trust this website ? As an initiative against mass surveillance, entering all your personnal information on a website isn't the smartest thing.
- OCISLY 6y ago
  After they asked for the PESEL (Polish national identity number) I just stopped filling the form. It's sensitive personal data, you don't want to give it unless it's necessar and you have complete trust for requesting party.
  - tester34 6y ago
    Yea, I've heard that crypto currencies exchanges require you to send your photo while holding your ID weird
    - emteycz 6y ago
      That's because of lawful KYC requirements.
    - xxs 6y ago
      Of course, it's like signing for bank account. It's not because of the crypto itself, but the standard money/forex part.
      - tester34 6y ago
        >Of course, it's like signing for bank account. with the difference that the bank is relatively trusted entity backed by shitton of formality meanwhile crypto exchanges seems to be more shady orgs with 30 yo CEOs
        input_sh 6y ago
        They still have to do that due to anti-money-laundering rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer This originates from what was at the time the least controversial part of the Patriot Act. If you want to be able to exchange cryptocurrencies to a Visa/Mastercard, the service needs your ID, regardless of where you're from.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      I bought some crypto on one of the local_x sites and the guy made me write _by hand_ a letter about my ID being real. A "do you want the money or not" conversation ensued.
  - daenney 6y ago
    Yeah that’s really not OK. Though in some countries that number isn’t sensitive by itself, asking for it to sign a petition is incredibly creepy. If you select Netherlands they’re at least informed enough to not ask for the Dutch equivalent, the BSN. It would be against the law for them to ask, process or store it.
    - threatofrain 6y ago
      How would you have an effective petition in the EU without verifying that petitioners are EU citizens? Then this petition would be reduced to a singular PR push.
      - daenney 6y ago
        You don’t need to ask for the social security number equivalent to verify citizenship. By itself it doesn’t help in that context since residents get one too. If you try the form for different countries, in a lot of cases they don’t ask for that particular identifier, because they legally can’t, and ask for address information instead. That’s still a little creepy, but a whole lot less.
        RobertoG 6y ago
        Personally, I have less problem with giving my ID than my address. It's the address what feels creepy to me. >>"By itself it doesn’t help in that context since residents get one too." At least in my country that's not true. The resident but not citizen number is different.
        varjag 6y ago
        Residents in much of the EU get plenty of rights, including voting in local elections. So why not? They live there, and their biometrics are being collected too.
        daenney 6y ago
        I didn’t say at any point that residents shouldn’t get to vote on this. But they’re looking to verify citizenship, not residency.
  - docdeek 6y ago
    That’s interesting - I looked at what was required for my country of nationality and my country of residence, and neither asked for the national ID number. They still wanted the full street address, but no ID number. Any idea why they would treat Poland differently? Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria all also seems to ask for a document number and not an address.
    - buzer 6y ago
      From looking into it a bit, it looks like each country sets the requirements by themselves. In case of Finland, requirements are documented at least at https://dvv.fi/en/european-citizens-initiative https://dvv.fi/en/european-citizens-initiative ("The organisers must collect the family name, full first names, date of birth, country of permanent residence and nationality for Finnish citizens signing statements of support."). They seem to be also collecting full address when it's not required for Finnish citizens.
    - OCISLY 6y ago
      I'm not sure, but I guess in some countries there is law against asking for certain personal information.
    - input_sh 6y ago
      I guess it depends on how the petitions work in countries? Where I'm from you never submit your national ID number (13 digit number given to each citizen once, never changes), but you do submit the "number" of your national ID (9 numbers and letters, changes when you move places or every 10 years, whichever comes first) when signing any petition.
    - maddocche 6y ago
      It depends on your country, some require personal information and some doesn't... For the latter you still have to provide your street address. Check ANNEX III part A of EU regulation here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1573312568557&uri=CELEX:32019R0788#ntr5-L_2019130EN.01007401-E0005 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=15733125...
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    I think this is an official petition, so, there are legal requirements to identify yourself as a citizen of an EU country. Depending of your country they ask for different data. For instance, for Finland they ask the physical address but for Belgium only the national ID number. I suppose that there is not such number in Finland or it's illegal to ask for it. There is a link in the form to the relevant regulation. So, the website looks legit. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's legit but my gut feeling it's that they are.
  - jack_arleth 6y ago
    I understand your concerns and where you are coming from, but the privacy policy is refreshingly transparent, readable and clear: https://reclaimyourface.eu/privacy-policy/ https://reclaimyourface.eu/privacy-policy/ Some key facts: - "ECI signatories: your full first and last names, country of residence and date of signature. Depending on the signatory’s nationality, we will also collect a combination of the following data: residence (street, number, postal code, city, country), date of birth, national identity document type and national identity document number." This seems to indicate that the data requested is dependant on the country you live in. So blaming the organization is a bit unfair. - "Your data will be stored by the group of organisers for a maximum retention period of one month after the submission of the initiative to the European Commission or 21 months after the beginning of the collection period, whichever is the earlier. It might be retained beyond these time limits in the case of administrative or legal proceedings, for a maximum of one month after the date of conclusion of these proceedings." They will remove your data whatever happens. I've signed the petition and handed over my the equivalent of PESEL. I did that because I understand that if we want to enact change we have to be more than a signature on an online form, we have to be a living breathing person and not just another email-address in a database. They can sweep gme_diamondhands_6969@whatever.com under the rug rather easily but along with data that proves that I'm a citizen that becomes much harder to do.
  - visarga 6y ago
    Nice. We don't support the privacy bill petition because we're afraid to disclose our data.
- cgio 6y ago
  Same with dark pattern around mail notifications. I left it there.
- hadrien01 6y ago
  It's weird, the old ECI website collected directly your personal information, the new one doesn't.[1] I don't understand why the EC would do that, I certainly trusted more the old system. [1] The direct link to this ECI: https://europa.eu/citizens-initiative/initiatives/details/2021/000001_en https://europa.eu/citizens-initiative/initiatives/details/20...
  - lou1306 6y ago
    > It's weird, the old ECI website collected directly your personal information, It still does: see, e.g., the "No Profit on Pandemic EU" initiative [1]. Not sure why this one does the signature collection on its own domain, it sounds suboptimal. [1] https://eci.ec.europa.eu/015/public/?lg=en https://eci.ec.europa.eu/015/public/?lg=en
    - buzer 6y ago
      Looks like there were some complaints about the EC provided system and some people decided to roll out their own & get it certified. https://citizens-initiative.eu/openeci/ https://citizens-initiative.eu/openeci/
- Zenst 6y ago
  This is because they are using an EU petition (European Citizens' Initiative -> ECI) system that will submit the petition to EU athorita and will only count signatures from people who live in the EU state.
  - kmlx 6y ago
    and we know this is an infallible system that has worked every single time :)
    - black_puppydog 6y ago
      Well, we know that if you don't supply that address, you might as well not do this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  An anonymous petition is totally useless. It's usual to ask for addresses, at least in the UK, and if the petition is aimed at being submitted according to a legal process there may be requirements that signatories be residents or constituents. Sure faking addresses is not much more difficult than faking names but then I suppose there's also a trade-off with complexity and cost and they also ask for ID data.
  - bsaul 6y ago
    I don't see what the tradeoff is. They ask for more information, and it brings zero additional protection against fraud. The only impact is for real people, that will have to disclose additional private information.
- leto_ii 6y ago
  It seems the requirement differs based on your nationality. For me they asked for either passport number or ID card number.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jonathanstrange 6y ago
I tried to fill it out in Firefox, and the "hcaptcha" field says "rate limited or network error. please retry". When I click "support" it says "sorry, we couldn't save your signature! The techies have been informed." It's a pity, I support the initiative, but I fear they might get far fewer signatures as people who are willing to sign. Maybe their captcha service has decided not to support the initiative?
- selckin 6y ago
  same, couldn't get past the captcha (chrome) and if you pick for them not to email you, they try to trick you with dark pattern (all trust gone)
  - Freak_NL 6y ago
    The captcha worked (after two tries), but on clicking SUPPORT the form vanishes and I get no feedback at all. No idea if this worked or not. This website looks untested with Firefox and an ad-blocker, which really is not uncommon for people worried about privacy.
- wahlis 6y ago
  I have the same issue. I guess it might be due to my adblocker . It feels like it lowers the credibility of the initiative.
  - aembleton 6y ago
    It's making a POST request to https://captcha.reclaimyourface.eu/getcaptcha https://captcha.reclaimyourface.eu/getcaptcha so unless you're blocking all captcha URLs then I would have thought that it would work. You probably also need JS enabled.
- Audiophilip 6y ago
  I had the same issue, but after a few more tries it went through.
- proca_app 6y ago
ekianjo 6y ago
So are we going to ban biometric stuff on passports too? because they became mandatory since a few years ago in the EU.
- notimetorelax 6y ago
  The petition is to regulate not to outright ban it, it’s in the first 2 paragraphs of the petition. Biometrics in a passport may be one of the cases allowed under that law.
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  Passports are not used to track me without me knowing about it. I can restrict the places where I present my actual physical passport to borders and interactions with my government. Interactive ad billboards with a camera in them? Not much I can do about those except deface them with a sticker. CCTV? Can't do anything about that. I'm not against security cameras per se, but I want them watched and judged by human beings, not algorithms (and ad billboards should not record me at all).
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > Passports are not used to track me without me knowing about it. except every hotel, every flight, ever trip outside your borders... you make it sound like it's OK for your movements to be identified as long as it's outside the borders of your original country?
    - g_p 6y ago
      I think this might come down to individual countries. I've stayed in hundreds of hotels throughout the UK, and never been asked for ID. I've flown hundreds of domestic flight legs, and on the non-budget airlines (budget ones use name change fees and paid changes to tickets as a major revenue stream) I've never had to show ID, and nor is it required. Going overseas, it's only needed for entering the country (and a cursory glance from the airline to assure themselves you actually have it, due to the high penalties they're charged for a returned passenger). I imagine therefore a lot of this is down to individual countries - in much of Europe they seem very keen to scan passports and ID documents at hotel check-in (often required by local legislation). I always felt this ironic given the (populist) view the UK is a surveillance heavy country, yet it was much of Europe that was being far more invasive in this regard in my experience.
eptcyka 6y ago
OK, we ban it, now what? I think the cat is out of the bag there, and I believe that institutions that are driven to convict rather than to seek justice or attack terrorism rather than to preserve peace will still use all the tools they can with little or no regard for law, like they always have.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  generally organizations that use tools that are illegal do so because they are criminal organizations or structurally placed in their bureaucracy to be above the law. If biometric surveillance is illegal on the EU level I believe it is clear that national police organizations will not be structurally above the law, and as such they will not be using those tools. There is of course the fact that some police organizations will do so and try to hide it, but they will at that point be able to be punished when caught because they will not be above the law.
  - nathias 6y ago
    yea like the NSA was punished for their stuff ...
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      as I said "structurally placed in their bureaucracy to be above the law", the NSA and the CIA are very much placed to be above the law in the US. Obviously pious people proclaim every now and then that nobody is above the law, but pragmatically these agencies often are. The Utah Highway Patrol is not placed to be above Federal law. If the EU passes a regulation forbidding the use of biometric surveillance the Danish National Police will be very much under that regulation, in the same way that if the US government passed a law regulating highway stops of motor vehicles the Utah Highway patrol would be under that law. There may be some EU agency that because of various things would be able to operate above the law on this issue, but not the national agencies.
      - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
alexandrerond 6y ago
For everyone that is worried about the data being collected: This is not your regular online-petition. This is an European Citizens' Initiative. It is an official procedure and the only mechanism the European Union gives their citizens to directly put topics on the Commission's table without being mediated by their politicians. The EU makes it extremely difficult to succeed even getting them to discuss something. Most ECIs attempts are striked off before they are even allowed to collect signatures. The fact that this initiative has been allowed to start collecting signatures is already a great success and means it may get somewhere. Signature collection is certified by the German authorities (https://sign.reclaimyourface.eu/api/d/certification.pdf https://sign.reclaimyourface.eu/api/d/certification.pdf) and needs to follow strict data compliance rules (another hurdle). Getting an ECI to qualify (1 million signatures or enough signatures in some countries) is very difficult, but achieving it sends a strong signal to EU leadership about what citizens worry about. Asking for your name and personal ID number is the minimum information needed to ensure the system is otherwise not abused, so that authorities can do minimal verification about the signers. Note that in the early days of ECIs, online collection was not even allowed. Authorities in each country are in charge of verifying the signatures from that country. So please, if you are an European citizen and agree with the goals of this ECI, sign it and do something good with your data. You do not have to sign up for the newsletter or provide an email. Don't let 1 tree block the view of the forest. If you want to read about the process and how it can be useful or useless, and what hurdles organizers need to go through, check the actual regulation: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019R0788 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE... .
- VSerge 6y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out, as it can be surprising to be asked one's address and full first names. This is not just a petition but actually a legal tool and it makes a big difference. Entirely worth it in order to stand united as citizens and demand the EU doesn't go the way of say, China, with mass surveillance and all the dystopian stuff that can arise from it (to remain with China's example: giving citizens social scores and giving them more or less rights depending on that).
  - 6y ago
kmlx 6y ago
am i the only one who find their examples really bad? couldn't they find actual, real examples? anyway, this is 50/50 for me. i can see the issues, but i can also see the positive effects. regardless, this tech has been in use for a while now and crimes still happen, terrorism still happens etc. nothing has really changed. but i think the big potential changes might come from being a bit more pro-active and identifying individuals with issues and providing the necessary help. for example at risk youth or anti-social behaviour. if you could pre-empt that or quickly identify the people involved then this should be a great way to make society a better place.
- wackro 6y ago
  How exactly does tracking and profiling individuals en-masse help society?
  - kmlx 6y ago
    there are many examples but i’ll provide just a couple of scenarios: automatic fines when anti-social behaviour occurs via face recognition. here’s another one: identifying individuals with potential diseases via cctv and providing pre-emptive care. and the last one: identifying at risk youths via cctv and providing support. in real time. the tech is not the problem. it’s how we use it. right now we use it for ads and the occasional terrorist. but the potential for good is huge.
    - A12-B 6y ago
      How would cctv know what someone 'at risk' looks like? Facial recognition isn't magic you know. And why would we need some dystopian style technology to monitor your every move to know you're sick, when you can just tell people? Those aren't very good examples.
    - literallycancer 6y ago
      I would much prefer the police to address the actual causes of crime, rather than watch me get stabbed on their cameras.
    - 6y ago
GordonS 6y ago
Gah, I (UK citizen) was just about to sign this... then remembered that the UK is no longer in the EU :( One of the reasons I'd wanted to remain in the EU is that, where privacy regulations are concerned, I trust the EU more than our own government.
- 4ggr0 6y ago
  Hugs from Switzerland.
- BurnGpuBurn 6y ago
  Hugs from the Netherlands. Also, I do hope that we finally switch to everybody speaking English in the European Parliament now.
  - estaseuropano 6y ago
    European parliament is the biggest translation engine in the world. Politicians speak in their home languages because they want soundbites for TV/radio etc. All the paper has long been in English and/or French.
- aembleton 6y ago
  Have you written to your MP regarding facial recognition?
david_arcos 6y ago
The hCaptcha is failing, "Rate limited or network error", so I can't sign.
FpUser 6y ago
This should've been handled by something like 2 way auth. Collect name and email of the person on website and email crypto secure unique code. The person can then send real mail to the government (designated address) referencing that unique code, the initiative being voted for and whatever personal data are required. May as well go back to website and indicate that the mail was sent so that someone can watch and make sure government does not hide the thing. Alternatively government can keep their own online secure form acting in the same capacity as that real mail.
intricatedetail 6y ago
These kind of mass data collections should be banned anywhere. Otherwise it enables any future Hitler or Stalin to select and locate any undesirable population and head them to camps.
macawfish 6y ago
Just a reminder that the 5G project is a biometric mass surveillance project, if you were missing the context on what that might look like in practice. Source: dozens of published articles about using mm wave antenna arrays to do stuff like gait recogition and "device free localization".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  Your comment would have some credibility if you 1: provided one of those dozens sources, and 2: proved that it is a goal of 5G.
  - macawfish 6y ago
    I'm tired right now but here's a link to a previous comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444
- mlN90 6y ago
  No, 5G's purpose is drying cats outside of microwaves. MIT repurposed a router to look through walls for people. Does that mean that 2.4 GHz routers are spycraft tools?
  - macawfish 6y ago
    They became spycraft tools right when that research was published. Seeing as how spying is done opportunistically. But yeah go ahead and check out some of these articles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444
3836293648 6y ago
> Sorry, we couldn't save your signature! Details: Argument "contact" has invalid value $contact. In field "birthDate": Expected type "Date", found false. There isn't even a contact or birthdate field (Sweden)

280 points by hacka22 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

beyondcompute 6y ago

Good news! Sounds like a great initiative.

bsaul 6y ago

I'm surprised they ask for my personal physical address for signing the petition. An email with a first name last name should be enough. After all, how can i trust this website ? As an initiative against mass surveillance, entering all your personnal information on a website isn't the smartest thing.

OCISLY 6y ago
After they asked for the PESEL (Polish national identity number) I just stopped filling the form. It's sensitive personal data, you don't want to give it unless it's necessar and you have complete trust for requesting party.
- tester34 6y ago
  Yea, I've heard that crypto currencies exchanges require you to send your photo while holding your ID weird
  - emteycz 6y ago
    That's because of lawful KYC requirements.
  - xxs 6y ago
    Of course, it's like signing for bank account. It's not because of the crypto itself, but the standard money/forex part.
    - tester34 6y ago
      >Of course, it's like signing for bank account. with the difference that the bank is relatively trusted entity backed by shitton of formality meanwhile crypto exchanges seems to be more shady orgs with 30 yo CEOs
      - input_sh 6y ago
        They still have to do that due to anti-money-laundering rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer This originates from what was at the time the least controversial part of the Patriot Act. If you want to be able to exchange cryptocurrencies to a Visa/Mastercard, the service needs your ID, regardless of where you're from.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    I bought some crypto on one of the local_x sites and the guy made me write _by hand_ a letter about my ID being real. A "do you want the money or not" conversation ensued.
- daenney 6y ago
  Yeah that’s really not OK. Though in some countries that number isn’t sensitive by itself, asking for it to sign a petition is incredibly creepy. If you select Netherlands they’re at least informed enough to not ask for the Dutch equivalent, the BSN. It would be against the law for them to ask, process or store it.
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    How would you have an effective petition in the EU without verifying that petitioners are EU citizens? Then this petition would be reduced to a singular PR push.
    - daenney 6y ago
      You don’t need to ask for the social security number equivalent to verify citizenship. By itself it doesn’t help in that context since residents get one too. If you try the form for different countries, in a lot of cases they don’t ask for that particular identifier, because they legally can’t, and ask for address information instead. That’s still a little creepy, but a whole lot less.
      - RobertoG 6y ago
        Personally, I have less problem with giving my ID than my address. It's the address what feels creepy to me. >>"By itself it doesn’t help in that context since residents get one too." At least in my country that's not true. The resident but not citizen number is different.
      - varjag 6y ago
        Residents in much of the EU get plenty of rights, including voting in local elections. So why not? They live there, and their biometrics are being collected too.
        daenney 6y ago
        I didn’t say at any point that residents shouldn’t get to vote on this. But they’re looking to verify citizenship, not residency.
- docdeek 6y ago
  That’s interesting - I looked at what was required for my country of nationality and my country of residence, and neither asked for the national ID number. They still wanted the full street address, but no ID number. Any idea why they would treat Poland differently? Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria all also seems to ask for a document number and not an address.
  - buzer 6y ago
    From looking into it a bit, it looks like each country sets the requirements by themselves. In case of Finland, requirements are documented at least at https://dvv.fi/en/european-citizens-initiative https://dvv.fi/en/european-citizens-initiative ("The organisers must collect the family name, full first names, date of birth, country of permanent residence and nationality for Finnish citizens signing statements of support."). They seem to be also collecting full address when it's not required for Finnish citizens.
  - OCISLY 6y ago
    I'm not sure, but I guess in some countries there is law against asking for certain personal information.
  - input_sh 6y ago
    I guess it depends on how the petitions work in countries? Where I'm from you never submit your national ID number (13 digit number given to each citizen once, never changes), but you do submit the "number" of your national ID (9 numbers and letters, changes when you move places or every 10 years, whichever comes first) when signing any petition.
  - maddocche 6y ago
    It depends on your country, some require personal information and some doesn't... For the latter you still have to provide your street address. Check ANNEX III part A of EU regulation here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1573312568557&uri=CELEX:32019R0788#ntr5-L_2019130EN.01007401-E0005 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=15733125...
- RobertoG 6y ago
  I think this is an official petition, so, there are legal requirements to identify yourself as a citizen of an EU country. Depending of your country they ask for different data. For instance, for Finland they ask the physical address but for Belgium only the national ID number. I suppose that there is not such number in Finland or it's illegal to ask for it. There is a link in the form to the relevant regulation. So, the website looks legit. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's legit but my gut feeling it's that they are.
- jack_arleth 6y ago
  I understand your concerns and where you are coming from, but the privacy policy is refreshingly transparent, readable and clear: https://reclaimyourface.eu/privacy-policy/ https://reclaimyourface.eu/privacy-policy/ Some key facts: - "ECI signatories: your full first and last names, country of residence and date of signature. Depending on the signatory’s nationality, we will also collect a combination of the following data: residence (street, number, postal code, city, country), date of birth, national identity document type and national identity document number." This seems to indicate that the data requested is dependant on the country you live in. So blaming the organization is a bit unfair. - "Your data will be stored by the group of organisers for a maximum retention period of one month after the submission of the initiative to the European Commission or 21 months after the beginning of the collection period, whichever is the earlier. It might be retained beyond these time limits in the case of administrative or legal proceedings, for a maximum of one month after the date of conclusion of these proceedings." They will remove your data whatever happens. I've signed the petition and handed over my the equivalent of PESEL. I did that because I understand that if we want to enact change we have to be more than a signature on an online form, we have to be a living breathing person and not just another email-address in a database. They can sweep gme_diamondhands_6969@whatever.com under the rug rather easily but along with data that proves that I'm a citizen that becomes much harder to do.
- visarga 6y ago
  Nice. We don't support the privacy bill petition because we're afraid to disclose our data.
cgio 6y ago
Same with dark pattern around mail notifications. I left it there.
hadrien01 6y ago
It's weird, the old ECI website collected directly your personal information, the new one doesn't.[1] I don't understand why the EC would do that, I certainly trusted more the old system. [1] The direct link to this ECI: https://europa.eu/citizens-initiative/initiatives/details/2021/000001_en https://europa.eu/citizens-initiative/initiatives/details/20...
- lou1306 6y ago
  > It's weird, the old ECI website collected directly your personal information, It still does: see, e.g., the "No Profit on Pandemic EU" initiative [1]. Not sure why this one does the signature collection on its own domain, it sounds suboptimal. [1] https://eci.ec.europa.eu/015/public/?lg=en https://eci.ec.europa.eu/015/public/?lg=en
  - buzer 6y ago
    Looks like there were some complaints about the EC provided system and some people decided to roll out their own & get it certified. https://citizens-initiative.eu/openeci/ https://citizens-initiative.eu/openeci/
Zenst 6y ago
This is because they are using an EU petition (European Citizens' Initiative -> ECI) system that will submit the petition to EU athorita and will only count signatures from people who live in the EU state.
- kmlx 6y ago
  and we know this is an infallible system that has worked every single time :)
  - black_puppydog 6y ago
    Well, we know that if you don't supply that address, you might as well not do this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
mytailorisrich 6y ago
An anonymous petition is totally useless. It's usual to ask for addresses, at least in the UK, and if the petition is aimed at being submitted according to a legal process there may be requirements that signatories be residents or constituents. Sure faking addresses is not much more difficult than faking names but then I suppose there's also a trade-off with complexity and cost and they also ask for ID data.
- bsaul 6y ago
  I don't see what the tradeoff is. They ask for more information, and it brings zero additional protection against fraud. The only impact is for real people, that will have to disclose additional private information.
leto_ii 6y ago
It seems the requirement differs based on your nationality. For me they asked for either passport number or ID card number.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jonathanstrange 6y ago

I tried to fill it out in Firefox, and the "hcaptcha" field says "rate limited or network error. please retry". When I click "support" it says "sorry, we couldn't save your signature! The techies have been informed." It's a pity, I support the initiative, but I fear they might get far fewer signatures as people who are willing to sign. Maybe their captcha service has decided not to support the initiative?

selckin 6y ago
same, couldn't get past the captcha (chrome) and if you pick for them not to email you, they try to trick you with dark pattern (all trust gone)
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  The captcha worked (after two tries), but on clicking SUPPORT the form vanishes and I get no feedback at all. No idea if this worked or not. This website looks untested with Firefox and an ad-blocker, which really is not uncommon for people worried about privacy.
wahlis 6y ago
I have the same issue. I guess it might be due to my adblocker . It feels like it lowers the credibility of the initiative.
- aembleton 6y ago
  It's making a POST request to https://captcha.reclaimyourface.eu/getcaptcha https://captcha.reclaimyourface.eu/getcaptcha so unless you're blocking all captcha URLs then I would have thought that it would work. You probably also need JS enabled.
Audiophilip 6y ago
I had the same issue, but after a few more tries it went through.
proca_app 6y ago

ekianjo 6y ago

So are we going to ban biometric stuff on passports too? because they became mandatory since a few years ago in the EU.

notimetorelax 6y ago
The petition is to regulate not to outright ban it, it’s in the first 2 paragraphs of the petition. Biometrics in a passport may be one of the cases allowed under that law.
Freak_NL 6y ago
Passports are not used to track me without me knowing about it. I can restrict the places where I present my actual physical passport to borders and interactions with my government. Interactive ad billboards with a camera in them? Not much I can do about those except deface them with a sticker. CCTV? Can't do anything about that. I'm not against security cameras per se, but I want them watched and judged by human beings, not algorithms (and ad billboards should not record me at all).
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > Passports are not used to track me without me knowing about it. except every hotel, every flight, ever trip outside your borders... you make it sound like it's OK for your movements to be identified as long as it's outside the borders of your original country?
  - g_p 6y ago
    I think this might come down to individual countries. I've stayed in hundreds of hotels throughout the UK, and never been asked for ID. I've flown hundreds of domestic flight legs, and on the non-budget airlines (budget ones use name change fees and paid changes to tickets as a major revenue stream) I've never had to show ID, and nor is it required. Going overseas, it's only needed for entering the country (and a cursory glance from the airline to assure themselves you actually have it, due to the high penalties they're charged for a returned passenger). I imagine therefore a lot of this is down to individual countries - in much of Europe they seem very keen to scan passports and ID documents at hotel check-in (often required by local legislation). I always felt this ironic given the (populist) view the UK is a surveillance heavy country, yet it was much of Europe that was being far more invasive in this regard in my experience.

eptcyka 6y ago

OK, we ban it, now what? I think the cat is out of the bag there, and I believe that institutions that are driven to convict rather than to seek justice or attack terrorism rather than to preserve peace will still use all the tools they can with little or no regard for law, like they always have.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
generally organizations that use tools that are illegal do so because they are criminal organizations or structurally placed in their bureaucracy to be above the law. If biometric surveillance is illegal on the EU level I believe it is clear that national police organizations will not be structurally above the law, and as such they will not be using those tools. There is of course the fact that some police organizations will do so and try to hide it, but they will at that point be able to be punished when caught because they will not be above the law.
- nathias 6y ago
  yea like the NSA was punished for their stuff ...
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    as I said "structurally placed in their bureaucracy to be above the law", the NSA and the CIA are very much placed to be above the law in the US. Obviously pious people proclaim every now and then that nobody is above the law, but pragmatically these agencies often are. The Utah Highway Patrol is not placed to be above Federal law. If the EU passes a regulation forbidding the use of biometric surveillance the Danish National Police will be very much under that regulation, in the same way that if the US government passed a law regulating highway stops of motor vehicles the Utah Highway patrol would be under that law. There may be some EU agency that because of various things would be able to operate above the law on this issue, but not the national agencies.
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago

alexandrerond 6y ago

For everyone that is worried about the data being collected: This is not your regular online-petition. This is an European Citizens' Initiative. It is an official procedure and the only mechanism the European Union gives their citizens to directly put topics on the Commission's table without being mediated by their politicians. The EU makes it extremely difficult to succeed even getting them to discuss something. Most ECIs attempts are striked off before they are even allowed to collect signatures. The fact that this initiative has been allowed to start collecting signatures is already a great success and means it may get somewhere. Signature collection is certified by the German authorities (https://sign.reclaimyourface.eu/api/d/certification.pdf https://sign.reclaimyourface.eu/api/d/certification.pdf) and needs to follow strict data compliance rules (another hurdle). Getting an ECI to qualify (1 million signatures or enough signatures in some countries) is very difficult, but achieving it sends a strong signal to EU leadership about what citizens worry about. Asking for your name and personal ID number is the minimum information needed to ensure the system is otherwise not abused, so that authorities can do minimal verification about the signers. Note that in the early days of ECIs, online collection was not even allowed. Authorities in each country are in charge of verifying the signatures from that country. So please, if you are an European citizen and agree with the goals of this ECI, sign it and do something good with your data. You do not have to sign up for the newsletter or provide an email. Don't let 1 tree block the view of the forest. If you want to read about the process and how it can be useful or useless, and what hurdles organizers need to go through, check the actual regulation: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019R0788 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE... .

VSerge 6y ago
Thanks for pointing this out, as it can be surprising to be asked one's address and full first names. This is not just a petition but actually a legal tool and it makes a big difference. Entirely worth it in order to stand united as citizens and demand the EU doesn't go the way of say, China, with mass surveillance and all the dystopian stuff that can arise from it (to remain with China's example: giving citizens social scores and giving them more or less rights depending on that).
- 6y ago

kmlx 6y ago

am i the only one who find their examples really bad? couldn't they find actual, real examples? anyway, this is 50/50 for me. i can see the issues, but i can also see the positive effects. regardless, this tech has been in use for a while now and crimes still happen, terrorism still happens etc. nothing has really changed. but i think the big potential changes might come from being a bit more pro-active and identifying individuals with issues and providing the necessary help. for example at risk youth or anti-social behaviour. if you could pre-empt that or quickly identify the people involved then this should be a great way to make society a better place.

wackro 6y ago
How exactly does tracking and profiling individuals en-masse help society?
- kmlx 6y ago
  there are many examples but i’ll provide just a couple of scenarios: automatic fines when anti-social behaviour occurs via face recognition. here’s another one: identifying individuals with potential diseases via cctv and providing pre-emptive care. and the last one: identifying at risk youths via cctv and providing support. in real time. the tech is not the problem. it’s how we use it. right now we use it for ads and the occasional terrorist. but the potential for good is huge.
  - A12-B 6y ago
    How would cctv know what someone 'at risk' looks like? Facial recognition isn't magic you know. And why would we need some dystopian style technology to monitor your every move to know you're sick, when you can just tell people? Those aren't very good examples.
  - literallycancer 6y ago
    I would much prefer the police to address the actual causes of crime, rather than watch me get stabbed on their cameras.
  - 6y ago

GordonS 6y ago

Gah, I (UK citizen) was just about to sign this... then remembered that the UK is no longer in the EU :( One of the reasons I'd wanted to remain in the EU is that, where privacy regulations are concerned, I trust the EU more than our own government.

4ggr0 6y ago
Hugs from Switzerland.
BurnGpuBurn 6y ago
Hugs from the Netherlands. Also, I do hope that we finally switch to everybody speaking English in the European Parliament now.
- estaseuropano 6y ago
  European parliament is the biggest translation engine in the world. Politicians speak in their home languages because they want soundbites for TV/radio etc. All the paper has long been in English and/or French.
aembleton 6y ago
Have you written to your MP regarding facial recognition?

david_arcos 6y ago

The hCaptcha is failing, "Rate limited or network error", so I can't sign.

FpUser 6y ago

This should've been handled by something like 2 way auth. Collect name and email of the person on website and email crypto secure unique code. The person can then send real mail to the government (designated address) referencing that unique code, the initiative being voted for and whatever personal data are required. May as well go back to website and indicate that the mail was sent so that someone can watch and make sure government does not hide the thing. Alternatively government can keep their own online secure form acting in the same capacity as that real mail.

intricatedetail 6y ago

These kind of mass data collections should be banned anywhere. Otherwise it enables any future Hitler or Stalin to select and locate any undesirable population and head them to camps.

macawfish 6y ago

Just a reminder that the 5G project is a biometric mass surveillance project, if you were missing the context on what that might look like in practice. Source: dozens of published articles about using mm wave antenna arrays to do stuff like gait recogition and "device free localization".

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rhn_mk1 6y ago
Your comment would have some credibility if you 1: provided one of those dozens sources, and 2: proved that it is a goal of 5G.
- macawfish 6y ago
  I'm tired right now but here's a link to a previous comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444
mlN90 6y ago
No, 5G's purpose is drying cats outside of microwaves. MIT repurposed a router to look through walls for people. Does that mean that 2.4 GHz routers are spycraft tools?
- macawfish 6y ago
  They became spycraft tools right when that research was published. Seeing as how spying is done opportunistically. But yeah go ahead and check out some of these articles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444

3836293648 6y ago

> Sorry, we couldn't save your signature! Details: Argument "contact" has invalid value $contact. In field "birthDate": Expected type "Date", found false. There isn't even a contact or birthdate field (Sweden)