From EFF:
Today the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) release “From Fingerprints to DNA: Biometric Data Collection in U.S. Immigrant Communities and Beyond.” The paper outlines the current state of U.S. government collection of biometric information and the problems that could arise from these growing databases of records. It also points out how immigrant communities are immediately affected by the way this data is collected, stored, and shared.
There is a growing push to link biometric collection with immigration enforcement. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) takes approximately 300,000 fingerprints per day from non-U.S. citizens crossing the border into the United States, and it collects biometrics from noncitizens applying for immigration benefits and from immigrants who have been detained. In addition, state and local law enforcement officers regularly collect fingerprints and DNA, as well as face prints and even iris scans. All of these government databases are growing and are being increasingly interconnected. For example, the Secure Communities program takes the fingerprints of people booked into local jails, matches them to prints contained in large federal immigration databases, and then uses this information to deport people.
Read the full post on EFF.
Access the full white paper “From Fingerprints to DNA: Biometric Data Collection in U.S. Immigrant Communities”:
https://www.eff.org/document/fingerprints-dna-biometric-data-collection-us-immigrant-communities-and-beyond