Do you value yourself so little?

Hundreds of people queuing up at shopping malls to sell their irises to an artificial intelligence company. It even seems like a joke, but we have seen these days that it is so real that there are still people who believe that they have been given money, well, cryptocurrencies, "for free", in exchange for nothing. In this recent case that has been in the media, the profit has been between 30 and 60 euros, because the price of the cryptocurrency fluctuates depending on the day.

In exchange for nothing? Just to let your iris be scanned, you see, nothing.

Pause. The iris scan provides a biometric data that identifies a person unequivocally and allows you to recognize them from all the others. In other words, they have given your unique identification to a company that now has particularly sensitive personal data for no one knows what present or future use it will have. Have these people really not considered that its misuse can cause numerous harms? It is not clear even about its good use.

Let's go back to the beginning. In today's digital age, data has become one of the most valuable assets. Within this vast information landscape, biometric data occupies a prominent place due to its uniqueness and ability to identify and authenticate individuals. It is high-quality data for training and improving algorithms. Biometric data, which includes fingerprints, facial recognition, voice, and other unique physical traits, is especially valuable. Accessing a specific, informed, justified, and cancelable use makes sense and provides legal coverage for the parties. If you enter into a mere commercial transaction, the issue mainly involves risks.

Biometric data is fundamental to authentication systems. Given without guarantees, we can imagine how it could be used to illegally access sensitive systems, commit financial fraud or impersonate the individual. What seemed nice in the shopping mall can have long-term implications for violating rights and freedoms in a person's life.

There will be those who have accessed it and feel calm because they have given their consent, but this is not enough when it comes to specially protected data, data that allows the unequivocal identification of the person through a physical characteristic that does not change throughout life. What is really important is how the person who processes the data will manage this information. And certainly, any doubt that the GDPR has not been followed rigorously, I will allow myself the luxury of hosting.

In any case, it highlights how important it is to advocate for greater awareness and education to protect people's rights and privacy in the digital age.

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