«“But what do you have to lose? What importance does it have, for you, to be instantly recognized, thanks to the simplest and most infallible means? Only the criminal benefits from hiding…”. He did not fail to recognize the value of the reasoning, but he was not convinced. At that time, in fact, Mr. Bertillon’s procedure only threatened the criminal, and it remains so to this day. It was the meaning of the word criminal that expanded prodigiously, to the point of designating any citizen unfavorable to the Regime, the System, the Party, or the man who embodies them. […]

The idea that a citizen never before involved with his country’s Justice system should remain perfectly free to conceal his identity if he so wished, for reasons of which he was the sole judge or simply for pleasure, that any indiscretion by a police officer in this regard could not be tolerated without very serious reasons—this is an idea that no longer surfaces in anyone’s mind. The day is perhaps not far off when it will seem as natural to us to leave the key in the lock—so that the police can enter our homes day and night—as it is to open our wallets at any request. And when the State deems it more practical, in order to save the time of its countless inspectors, to impose an external mark upon us, why would we hesitate to let ourselves be branded with iron, on the cheek or the buttocks, like livestock? The purge of the Nonconformists, so dear to totalitarian regimes, would thus be immensely facilitated.» France Against the Robots - Georges Bernanos (1946)