How would you feel if you were photographed and fingerprinted at the U.K. border control?

by Charlie Leocha on December 14, 2009

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One of the most surprising discoveries by U.S. citizens about our current border controls is the extensive implementation of biometrics. Most Americans don’t realize that foreigners coming into the U.S. at airports are having all 10 fingers fingerprinted.

I’m not talking about fingerprinting only dodgy characters from obscure countries. This is being done to our friends and tourists from the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, everyone arriving by air. How would you feel if you had to do the same when visiting other countries?

If Border Control and Protection has their way, everyone entering the U.S. through an airport will be photographed and have their irises scanned. I’ve know this for some time, but it still seems unbelieveable.

Wait there, more! Plans are being made and tests are underway to take fingerprints, photos and iris scans when visitors depart as well.

Testimony from Rand Beers, Under Secretary National Protection and Programs Directorate, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), discussed our expanding biometric capabilities and the introduction of these procedures internationally.

Some countries have already begun operations or are nearing deployment. For example:
• Japan has implemented a two-fingerprint biometric entry system similar to US-VISIT’s initial system;
• The United Kingdom is collecting 10 fingerprints from visa applicants and testing fingerprint collection at ports of entry;
• The European Union is building a 10-fingerprint visa-issuance program based on the very successful Eurodac;
• Australia, which has been a pioneer in facial recognition, is advancing its identitymanagement program;
• The United Arab Emirates has long been using iris scans as part of its immigration and border control processes; and
• Other countries, including Peru, Mexico, and Canada, are actively pursuing biometrics implementation.

As the use of biometrics increases worldwide, consistent international standards for biometrics and data sharing are essential to developing compatible systems, and compatible systems are essential to hindering international criminal enterprises as well as terrorists’ ability to travel.

Get ready. These biometrics are coming our way. Soon we will be fingerprinted, have mug shots taken and be getting our irises scanned when we fly to Europe, Japan, Australia and South America as tourists or businessmen. What we are doing to the rest of the world is being used as model of how to treat us.

Already, countries like Chile have instituted stiff border crossing reciprocity fee of $131 for U.S. citizens that mirror the visa charges that the U.S. State Department charges for Chileans to visit our country.

Get ready for reciprocity biometrics as soon as these countries get their systems into place.

Going through border control when entering the European Union and other countries will soon be a major hassle should similar procedures to our homegrown biometrics get spread across the planet

For those with privacy concerns, this collection of fingerprints and perhaps eyescans and photos together with passport numbers, date of birth, address, etc. all under dubious control of foreign governments will be a nightmare.

It makes me shudder. Worse, according to our own DHS, it is being put into place today.

How do you feel about the prospects of being fingerprinted, having your iris scanned and being photographed each time you cross a border? Take our basic survey. We’d love to know.

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Tagged as: National Protection and Programs Directorate, Rand Beers

  • Joe

    I still disagree with (what I perceive as) your inability to distinguish between (A) governmental scrutiny and (B) tyranny. As I have said many times in response to your posts, I don’t care what the government knows about me, as long as it doesn’t try to prevent me from doing things that are harmless. I wish you and others felt the same way.

    But, even so, I must acknowledge that this survey is far better than the one you put together on the millimeter wave scanners. The questions were not leading, and it seemed designed to collect information (which is the proper role for a survey) rather than influence opinion (which is an unethical use of a survey). I would have preferred for Question 4 to be divided into two parts, one dealing with collection of information, and another dealing with information sharing to commercial entities — but that is simply an issue of design, not of ethics or politics. I appreciate the improvement in survey construction.

  • Patp

    Funny, I just left UK, ans saw quit a few people being fingerprinted.
    Was wondering what it was about, I was not fingerprinted.

  • http://www.eyeflare.com/ Jack Norell

    I, for one, don’t have much of an issue with the biometrics at border controls. After all, it’s up to each country to have final say on who can cross its borders. It’s not a privacy issue, you can elect not to travel quite easily, which would make this a non-issue.

    However, the U.S. should make the process smoother for everyone, especially in getting tourists visas for non-ESTA countries.

    And saying that other countries’ data controls are ‘dubious’ is a spurious claim: Foreigners do for good reason feel the same about U.S. controls. These are not only opaque, but without any judicial oversights for the traveler, the traveler’s government, or even U.S. Congress!

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  • Robert

    Is one of the reasons that Chicago was eliminated from Olympic consideration the fact that we have made it more difficult for foreigners to enter our country? We are losing foreign tourists partly because our visa and entry requirements are onerous to foreign tourists. They take their money elsewhere.

  • Mhoop

    I certainly have a problem with this paranoid/corporate driven scheme.
    The corporations that dream up the technology to make all these things happen is partly to blame. There’s plenty of money to be made selling the equipment–and replacing it with “newer” stuff in an endless cycle; training the users; providing tech assistance; and following up with selling the systems and equipment to the governments that will use what they know to control us, body and soul, eventually.
    If we show any indication of protesting anything the people in control do, we’ll be easy to scoop up and make disappear, unless they give us a break and send us end to a re-education camp.
    My late husband was in US Navy spy program. He always said that civilians don’t look far enough ahead, while the military trains its people to plan for any contingency they can imagine. IMO, he was right on.
    INFORMATION IS POWER and it can be used against us because there are too many people in the world who will go along to get along and they will end up sending the rest of us to purgatory if we show any signs of protest, or are a pest to someone in the chain of command.
    Call me crazy, if you want, but if you study history you will see that every tyranny in history has squashed dissent and done what it takes to stay in power.
    Those who think they are just going to live their lives despite this technology had better use some imagination, read some history, and think again. Your definition of harmless just might not agree with the definition of harmless defined by people who have control of this information. And they will have the last word about your travels, even your life. I’m glad I’m too old to live long enough to see what’s coming.
    Example: Climate change will affect you when the hordes scramble for high ground. Denial will get you nowhere when somebody in power wants your above the high water mark home for his family.

  • joe madely

    Do you know why these measures (finger printing, biometric data, police state alert, checking your id at random) have been introduced around the world? I can tell you why here:

    your goverment shas been hijacked/ overtaken by a powerful group of elite bankers that control even america today. Through bribery and threats, these governments are under the control of these powerful groups all these anti-terrorist measures: finger printing, biometric data etc is just a guise to control you, in the future. they will know what where you’ve been, what you’ve done, where you go shopping etc, they will have total control over your life. It will be a cashless society where all your data and money will be stored in RFID chips implanted into your hand. If you do something they don’t like they’ll simply cancel your money balances – total control! The technology to do all this aleady exists, they just need to implement it into your lives

    Think about it: without the treat of terror, do you think the US government would be able to take away so many freedoms the US citizens have been enjoying previously. finger prints for dirving license, power to detrain and arrest without reason, indefinite imprisonment without reason. Wake up you’ve all been had!

    research NEW WORLD ORDER to find out more

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