do these magic words I would like to opt out still work?

wonders if everyone is consenting by default because they are led to believe this is now how things are done, and they have no alternative? or is there no alternative?

if only we knew of a lawyer who could look into this? :)

Back from the high seas. Just be glad they didn't swab for DNA. That will probably be version 2.0.

The invasion of privacy is real, my city is full of security cameras, also biometric registration is the order of the day, what can we do against this? It's a good question...

Another thing I should have mentioned in the post. It was unseasonably cold as hell when we disembarked the ship. Before getting to the biometric exit area I mentioned, we had to collect luggage in an enclosed, heated area. My friend group was a bunch of seniors. One of them was a woman who was having trouble walking due to recent surgery, and was sensitive to cold. Since our pick up ride was late, we tried to slow walk the process to avoid going out into the freezing cold. The minute we stopped walking, we were hurried along by guards. I finally asked one of them to give us a break, and explained the situation. He pointed to a camera and said that we all were under surveillance, and if he didn't prevent people from standing around for more than 30 seconds there would be an alert, and he would be in trouble. Pretty dystopian.

Welcome back Siggy!

I still hate all of these travel related privacy invasions. I don't know if I'll ever acclimate to them.

I wonder if you could make a skin toned strip to lay on your cheek that reflects the camera or some shit

I had to show my face to board a flight in Chicago. I waited to be the last one to board with my son and politely said, "I would prefer not to use the camera". After a moment's pause, she said, "Oh okay" and proceeded to check my documents. No hassle whatsoever. People just don't realize that you CAN opt out.

This is why as bitcoin goes up, private jets will be bought up by bitcoiners who don't want to play along anymore.

thanks for your update

Interesting.

The future is here and what await for us is not good.

It's getting into the whole "mark on the forehead" type stuff.

Thanks for sharing. We are eyeing up a Disney cruise next year. I guess some stuff to be aware of

My one cruise was in 2018, and thankfully the biometrics weren't a thing on our ship then (though obviously we needed the passport). That's disappointing to hear.

(We got a very limited ship wifi plan and just used non phone devices to check email once a day to make sure we hadn't missed anything major. It was actually nice being largely offline and having my phone serve as nothing more than a camera.)

Hope you were able to enjoy lots of food, reading, and sights (those were the three things I most loved when we were on the cruise).

Were the biometrics not optional?

Privacy is gone when it comes to travel internationally. I don't know if cruises must have what you described because they can potentially hop to multiple countries; I guess they do.

You can't board a domestic flight anywhere without KYCing yourself, so privacy + travel should be expected.

I wouldn't trust anything on someone else's wifi, I would def use a VPN.

I appreciate the first hand info.

You mentioned:

Is your wife a privacy minded individual?

Reason I ask is I found one family's desire to travel to be one of the more problematic activities and I can see how one would stop resisting the privacy invasions. One side wants to have a nice relaxing vacation while the other side has strong privacy principles they don't want to comprise on.

If this is the case any advice/experience you could share on how to manage this family dynamic? Without having both sides being grumpy.

thanks for the update

Surely, the biometrics verification is now a necessary thing wherever you go. I don't really feel that this must be understood as an encroachment to someone's privacy. Rather, we must see the positive side of this. I've listened to people opposing this or that without , but I believe when something is done for security reasons and applies to everyone in the same way, we must follow.