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So this is a good application of the birthday paradox actually and the fundamental misunderstanding people have of this is already a real problem in law enforcement.

Take DNA testing. We all know that given two samples the odds of a false positive are incredibly low. So DNA testing is a great too for eliminating people who might otherwise be suspects or further evidence against the guilty.

The problem is that given this DNA database, someone decided "let's find our suspect by looking for a match". With 1 in a billion chance of a random match and 100M samples, your chances of getting a false positive are really high.

The problem is that there are instances where a DNA match alone is used to prosecute or even convict people.

In recent years this problem has gotten worse due to the rise of familial DNA matching. Given two samples, we used to only have the ability to say if they were a match or not. Now we can say how much of a match they are. How much of a partial match is enough? What's more, you may be implicated by the stored DNA is relatives.

Facial recognition is far more imprecise than DNA. So yeah I fully expect this to get abused by prosecutors and law enforcement.




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