From Tara over at Horse Pig Cow she highlights this issue she learned about while in Europe by a fellow blogger.

Here in Europe we're currently forced to get passports with biometrical data because the US wants us to do so. There are a lot of discussions about this and not everyone is happy with it. There is still no explanation from my government on what this is for. But there might be at least some control and protection of my data by my own government against other interests.

The reason this is happening around the world is a phenomena called 'policy laundering.' This what happens when governments want a policy.

Policy - "biometrics embedded in passports" and even more specifically being able to read these biometrics without touching the pass port. Basically mandating RFID chips with your biometrics in your passport.

So would this pass in the US? Not likely. So they took the 'policy' to the international standards body that determines international standards for passports. It is this body that decides that the policy.

The blogger continues and touches on issues that we are tackling in the identity world.

And now there's this huge database of the same data building up without any control.

And that's a big part of my problem: I don't have control over my own data. At least none that I know of. Everyone can upload pictures of me and tag them with my name and e-mail address and I don't even know it. In Germany it's a human right to know what others know about someone and I see some possible violations of that in your (and other's, for sure) service.

Owning your own data or at least having a copy of it is what we have been talking about in the identity community for a while.