“It was a really creepy feeling,” says data protection activist Leena Simon, describing the moment when she last visited the citizens’ service center at her local town hall and they wanted to take her fingerprints.
She was instructed to press the index fingers of both hands on the glass surface of a scanner. The idea was that the resulting fingerprints would be included in her new passport. However, she used a trick that she’s not willing to share to spoil the scan. Leena is a member of a German organization called Digitalcourage, which is committed to privacy and digital rights.
So, did it work? Leena says she can’t be sure. But what she does know: “For the rest of the day, I felt awful.” She says it is “invasive” when the state forces law-abiding citizens to allow their fingerprints to be taken. After all, she says, it’s a tool ordinarily used by the police in criminal investigations: “I don’t understand why I should have
— source dw.com | Nina Werkhäuser, Esther Felden | 03.07.2021