Originally Posted by
surreycrv
While Americans may be the leaders in "rush to security after an incident", they are far from leaders of new technology security. Take credit cards for an easy example, the world has embraced chip and pin cards for what, a decade or better. It's just this year American business has finally adopted the system. How many Americans were denied usage of their dated swipe and sign cards travelling abroad during the last decade?
A biometric tie to the passport presenter is not a tin foil hat convention theme.
Australia only changed to Chip and Pin last year, and there are still cards without chips and POS systems are still able to use both. A few years ago while in Europe, before my cards were changed to Chip, I was unable to use a number of ticket machines because of the "older" card type and the machine had no way of using an alternate option. Had to pay more and use a sales desk because the machines where chip and pin only. No cash, and no backup in case a card didn't have a chip or the chip failed to read.
It's not like the chip and pin system is any more "secure" then the old mag strip system.