Why Does the US Want Everyone’s Biometric Data (Regardless of Who Is in the White House)?

And can it be trusted with it? (rhetorical question)

The United States Secretary of Homeland Security spent much of last week visiting countries in Latin America, instructing their respective governments on what they can do to reduce or eliminate their exposure to Trump’s first volley of tariffs. On Monday, she sat down for an interview with Fox News’ chief political anchor Bret Baier and candidly discussed some of the demands she had made of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum during their supposedly private meeting on Friday.

Those demands included reinforcing Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, the need to scan shipments that arrive in the US by air from Mexico, verify criminal records with Mexico, and, last but by no means least, share the biometric data of all migrants and travellers with US authorities.

The Mexican government was apparently not willing, or in one case was unable, to meet these demands. In her daily press conference on Tuesday, Sheinbaum said she did not agree with further militarising Mexico’s border with Guatemala, arguing “that the best way… to address migration on the southern border” is to promote economic development between Southern Mexico and Guatemala by building two industrial centres in Tapachula, the largest city on the southern border, and extending the Interoceanic Train to Guatemala.

It’s a novel idea that will no doubt get short shrift in the Trump Administration where the common belief, as recently expounded by JD Vance, is that the prevailing economic and trade system should ensure that poor, formerly colonised countries in the Global South remain trapped at the bottom of the global value chain, even if it means that they will be a constant source of outward migration towards the US.

The Sheinbaum government was also unable to provide the US with biometric details of Mexican migrants and travellers to the US.

“In the case of biometric data, I explained to the secretary that in Mexico we do not have biometric data for personal identity and that, in any case, any discussion would have to be part of a working table, so the second agreement was not signed,” the Mexican president said.

While Mexico may not have that data yet, the Sheinbaum government is planning to convert the so-called Unique Population Registry Code (CURP), a document used to identify oneself, into an identification card with biometric information. And while Mexico and Venezuela may not have developed integrated biometric databases for all their citizens — yet — most other Latin American countries have, according to a report (in Spanish) by Deutsche Welle:

With technological advancement, the need to record and control the personal data of the inhabitants in a secure way became a necessity.

Latin America has not been the exception, because in most of the countries that make up this region, changes in that area began about ten years ago, and currently it can be said that almost all of them have modern registration systems that have the information of those who live in their territory.

Digital signatures, fingerprints and facial registration are part of the so-called biometric data, which are increasingly used in both the public and private domain, and are collected by governments through the identity documents they issue, which include chips or other tools that contain this sensitive information.

Paving A Digital Road to Hell

This is largely the result of all the millions, if not billions, of dollars that have flowed from multilateral lenders like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank into the coffers of national governments in the Global South for the purpose of developing digital identity systems, often with biometric components. In 2022, the World Bank’s ID for Development program (ID4D) came under intense criticism from the NYU School of Law’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) for potentially paving a digital road to hell:

Through the embrace of digital technologies, the World Bank and a broader global network of actors has been promoting a new paradigm for ID systems that prioritizes what we refer to as ‘economic identity.’ These systems focus on fueling digital transactions and transforming individuals into traceable data. They often ignore the ability of identification systems to recognize not only that an individual is unique, but that they have a legal status
with associated rights.

Still, proponents have cloaked this new paradigm in the language of human rights and inclusion, arguing that such systems will help to achieve multiple Sustainable Development Goals. Like physical roads, national digital identification systems with biometric components (digital ID systems) are presented as the public infrastructure of the digital future…

The problem, notes the paper, is that this emerging infrastructure has “been linked to severe and large-scale human rights violations in a range of countries around the world, affecting social, civil, and political rights.” What’s more, the benefits remain “ill-defined and poorly documented”:

Those who stand to benefit the most may not be those “left behind,” but a small group of companies and security-minded governments. The World Bank and the network argue that investing in digital ID systems is paving the road to an equitable digital future. But, despite undoubted good intentions on the part of some, they may well be paving a digital road to hell.

Trump Admin Makes an Offer Most Countries Won’t Refuse

Now, as if to confirm that fear, the Trump administration wants to get its hands on as much of that biometric data as possible — and apparently not only for migration purposes. Asked by a journalist why the US wanted Mexicans’ biometric identifiers, Sheinbaum said it was “primarily” — in other words, not exclusively — for the purposes of migration control.

Faced with the threat of double-digit tariffs on their exports to the US at a time of stagnating global economic growth, many countries in the region will not be able to resist the offer of a temporary respite from those tariffs in exchange for sharing their citizens’ biometric data with the US.

A few days before meeting Sheinbaum, Noem signed a Statement of Intent for Biometric Cooperation with Colombian Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia to expand cooperation on biometric data sharing between the two nations. The ostensible purpose of the agreement is to deploy advanced biometric capabilities, including fingerprints and other identifiers, in order to manage migration more effectively and disrupt criminal activities that pose threats to both countries. From Biometric Update:

The agreement involves Colombia implementing biometric capabilities through the US Department of Homeland Security’s data-sharing initiative. This collaboration is expected to enhance the detection and prevention of criminal activities at Colombia’s borders, thereby strengthening regional security systems.

Noem noted, “We’re going to strengthen our regional security systems and make sure we’re disrupting the movement of threatening actors that perpetuate illegal activity and also facilitate illegal trafficking of migrants.”

This agreement follows recent tensions between the U.S. and Colombia regarding deportation flights. In January, Colombian President Gustavo Petro halted U.S. deportation flights carrying Colombian nationals, citing concerns over the treatment of migrants. This led to a diplomatic standoff, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs and sanctions. The two countries eventually reached a resolution, leading to the resumption of deportation flights. ​

However, concerns have been raised in Colombia about the lack of transparency regarding the actual contents of the signed document, as well as the potential scope of the data exchange. While Colombia’s deputy foreign minister stressed that gaining access to US databases would help Colombian authorities identify people involved in criminal activities, he also acknowledged that Colombian legislation currently limits the exchange of personal information with other countries to that of foreigners, excluding Colombian citizens.

Limited, If Any, Safeguards

It is also unclear who will have access to the data in the US and what kind of data protections will apply. This being the US under a second Trump administration that seems hellbent on unleashing the animal spirits in the tech sector, the answer to the latter question is likely to be: “few, if any”. As Biometric Update reports, since his return to the White House, Trump has already dismantled several Biden-era regulations, including comprehensive guidelines on AI that established at least limited privacy, security, and ethical safeguards:

The revocation of these regulations marked a pivotal shift towards a deregulatory approach, prioritizing innovation over… oversight… [and creating] a fragmented regulatory environment, complicating compliance for law enforcement agencies operating across state lines. This inconsistency not only undermines the effectiveness of state-level protections but also creates legal ambiguities that could be exploited by agencies seeking to circumvent stricter regulations.

These legal ambiguities will presumably also be exploited by the tech bros jostling for power and influence within the Trump administration. In fact, their lawyers probably helped write the new soft-touch regulations. Said tech bros include:

• Elon Musk, who, through DOGE, is reshaping the technological landscape of the federal government while still seemingly intent on turning X into an everything app similar to China’s We Chat and Alipay;
• Peter Thiel, who helped finance JD Vance’s rapid rise to the vice presidency and whose spyware company, Palantir, is well-placed to reap the dividends of Trump’s plans for new border enforcement spending, immigration surveillance, and mass deportation;
• Larry Ellison, who is aggressively pushing for governments around the world, particularly the US and the UK, to embrace fully centralised AI-enabled control and surveillance systems, presumably managed by his company, Oracle, even as it struggles to keep its own clients’ data secure.

Mission Creep

Another big concern, of course, is mission creep. Put simply, the US government’s biometric data dragnet is unlikely to apply solely to illegal immigrants and criminals.

The US government has already built the world’s second largest biometric database in the world, much of the data on which was harvested without the consent of the citizens in question. In 2022, the Biden administration offered to share that data with the governments of the 40 countries selected for its visa waiver program.

From our 2022 article, Unbeknown to Most US Citizens, Washington is Preparing to Share Their Biometric Data With Dozens of Other National Governments:

On offer is access to vast reams of sensitive data on US citizens held by the Department of Homeland Security. It includes the IDENT/HART database, which the British civil rights organization Statewatch describes as “the largest U.S. Government biometric database and the second largest biometric database in the world, containing over 270 million identities from over 40 U.S. agencies.”

Biometric identifiers include fingerprints, facial features and other physiological characteristics that can be used for automated identification…

The data-sharing arrangement is being offered to all 40 countries selected for the US government’s Visa Waiver Program (VWP). That means their citizens can travel to the U.S. for up to 90 days without a visa. They include most of the EU’s 27 Member States, three of the US’ four fellow members of the Five Eye Alliance (United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia), Japan and South Korea.

A Kafkaesque Nightmare

Of course, the US government is not offering to share the biometric data of 270 million of its citizens out of pure selfless altruism. It wants something in return — namely the biometric data of the citizens of its partner states:

“In turn, DHS may submit biometrics to IBIS partner countries to search against their biometric identity management systems in order for partner countries to provide DHS with sharable biographic, derogatory, and encounter information when a U.S. search matches their biometric records. This high-volume matching and data exchange is accomplished within minutes and is fully automated; match confirmation and supporting data is exchanged with no officer intervention.”

The emphasis in the last sentence was added by Statewatch, for good reason. In the fully digitised world that is fast taking shape around us, many of the decisions or actions taken by local, regional or national authorities that affect us will be fully automated; no human intervention will be needed. That means that trying to get those decisions or actions reversed or overturned is likely to be a Kafkaesque nightmare.

A Pioneer in Biometric Data Harvesting

Since 9/11, one US government after another has expanded and upgraded the biometric entry/exit systems at all points of entry into the US, including land borders, seaports and airports. The US Customs and Border Protection boasts of successfully implementing facial biometrics into the entry processes at all international airports, and processing more than 540 million travellers using biometric facial comparison technology.

In this regard, the US has been a pioneer in biometric data harvesting. And now other countries/jurisdictions are trying to catch up. The UK has introduced its Electronic Travel Authorisation, for which many foreign nationals, including USians, Canadians and EU citizens, will have to pay a small fee to be able to travel to the country. As the (London) Times reports, facial recognition technology could — as in, will — be used to make these “contactless corridors” possible, which in turn would require international travellers to submit biographic and biometric details, like photos of their faces.

The EU, meanwhile, keeps postponing the deadline for its electronic border system due to technical issues. Most recently, Germany, France and the Netherlands warned that the necessary computer systems were not ready, raising concerns about possible queues and delays. Once fully launched, the system will require foreign travellers to register their fingerprints, facial images and other personal details upon arrival.

In most of these emerging systems, national citizens do not need to register their finger prints, irises or facial images with their own governments — YET! They can continue to use their old school passports, national IDs or driving licences. But it is surely just a matter of time.

This is a global agenda that has been pushed for years by some of the most powerful international and multilateral organisations on the planet, from the UN to the WEF (more or less the same thing these days), to the World Bank, the IMF, the Bank of International Settlements and the G20. One of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG #16.9) is to provide “a legal identity for all” by 2030. And that identity will be of a digital nature — not just for the hundreds of millions who currently do not have legal identity, but for everyone on the planet…

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