Comment by hnbad
Surely there's a difference between collecting a thumbprint for a driver's license or even collecting full fingerprints for a specific job type, and collecting your DNA and an iris scan just for being a citizen?
I'm German. My government literally issues ID cards and requires fingerprints for those nowadays as well (because terrorism or the children or whatever works as the excuse at the moment) but the idea of a government agency collecting my DNA seems far more invasive given the kind of things you can do with that information and the kind of things governments (especially in my country but in the US and Canada too) have historically done to groups of people under them.
If you think there's nothing concerning about the government wanting to collect extensive biometric data including DNA from not only people applying for immigration but also people associated with them or their application, maybe it would sound more concerning to you if I said that in German.
In the EU, national ID cards are required to contain fingerprints in an electronically readable section. (a private key is required to read them via NFC) As a result, Ireland started issuing passport cards, since compliant passports can be used in place of a national ID card. The only biometric data on my passport is a black and white image of my face. (that can be read with a key derived from data on the passport itself)