US Visitor Fingerprints To Be (Perhaps) Stored by FBI

stair69 writes "Since 2004 many visitors to the United States have had 2 fingerprints taken under the US-VISIT scheme. Now there are new plans to extend this scheme — under the proposal all 10 fingerprints will be taken, and they will be stored permanently on the FBI's criminal fingerprint database. The fingerprints will also be made available to police forces in other countries. The scheme is due to be introduced by the end of 2008, but it will be trialled in 10 of the bigger airports initially." Of course, it is worth pointing out that given the recent change in Congress, I suspect that a number of countries will get a "bye" on this round,

Comments

Hilarious

[symbolic]

I guess they just haven't learned the difference between quantity of information, and its overall quality. They're dealing with a very low signal-to-noise ratio when 'plans' like this are implemented, and that in itself will become a major impediment to dealing with any true threats. I can't help but wonder if this is coming from the Democrats or the Republicans. If it's the Dems, I'm thoroughly disappointed - I thought the idea was to *reverse* the damage done by the Republican party, not add to it.

Just another reason...

[AVee]

...to never ever vistit the 'land of the free'. I wouldn't do it currently because of all 'security' measures allready in place. But it's reassuring to find out I was right about that.

What the heck is that supposed to mean?

[MarkusQ]

Of course, it is worth pointing out that given the recent change in Congress, I suspect that a number of countries will get a "bye" on this round,

What the heck is that supposed to mean? What countries? And why? And, for that matter, how is congress going to get involved at that level of detail...especially since they're already claiming they can't even do anything to stop Bush from escalating the war, despite the fact that by most accounts they were elected to do just that?

Was part of this remark clipped off (note the trailing comma) or am I missing some interpretation that is less senseless than the obvious?

--MarkusQ

back at ya

[tuxette]

I wonder how many other countries will follow suit, that is, fingerprint visitors from the US and store their fingerprints and personal data in their criminal database. Brasil already fingerprints and photographs US citizens (and only US citizens) visiting Brasil...

Avoiding the USA..?

[pubjames]

If this goes ahead, before visiting the USA I want to know:

1) What is the chance of a false positive with this system? i.e. what is the chance that it might think I am someone they are looking for?
2) What is the procedure then for someone who is not an American citizen?

I can imagine what hell you might go through if this system identifies you as a wanted terrorist - not a chance I want to take, even if the odds of it happening are very low.

Re:Avoiding the USA..?

[cHALiTO]

That's not how it works. AFIS systems, especially criminal ones, don't take -ANY- sort of decision by themselves, they just do some matching on the DB, and produce 'candidates' list (ie: the list of prints that look the most like the one(s) you searched.) then an expert looks at the results, and resumes the identification visually, as they've been doing since fingerprint identification was invented. The system is mostly a HUGE time saver for identification experts.
So, it's quite unlikely that they'll be checking your airport-scanned fingerprints against the whole database while you wait, as they can't possibly have as many experts checking prints, and would have to automate the process (allowing the system to declare HIT/NOHITs automatically, which means there'd be an error margin). If they did automate the process and actually look for your prints in the whole database, they should be trained and informed that any result from such a system is NOT definitive, and subject to an expert's confirmation to be taken seriously.

If they're doing anything else than just taking the prints and storing them (no, didn't read tfa.. will do later), most probably they'll be doing authentication rather than identification. That is, the first time they take your prints, store them on a DB related to your passport number for example. When you pass thru the airport again, you're re taken your prints, and they're searched on the DB by your passport number... if your record on the DB says there's your prints there, it will compare the prints it just scanned to the ones on the DB, if they match, no problem, if they don't, houston we have a problem (auth is way more accurate than ident when done automatically, and of course orders of magnitude faster).

but that's not the problem.. what really scares me is that they're (according to the summary) adding them to a CRIMINAL database!.. that's outright illegal in some countries, and it should well be!! Normally there's a civil database, which is used for civil ident (like say on a bank, or to get a new document or something), and only uses 2 or 6 fingers, non-rolled, which are not fit for matching against crime-scene-lifted partial prints (btw, its quite rare to find a complete, perfect print on a crime scene a la CSI or worse, national treasure.. BS). And then there's criminal systems which keep all 10 fingers, rolled, which can be used to search against crime-scene-lifted partial fps. Mixing the two sucks. Sadly It's also done here in Argentina when you get a passport, as they only have one AFIS system for the federal police, they use the same one both for criminals and for civilians.. (apparently we can't afford 2 systems). Records belong to one scope or the other depending on the ID type. The criminal record (if there's any) is kept elsewhere, on another system, and it's only referenced manually with a common key.
Still sucks :(

Re:Avoiding the USA..?

[bheading]

1) What is the chance of a false positive with this system? i.e. what is the chance that it might think I am someone they are looking for?

The chance exists, because I am one of those people. In 2005 I was visiting New York for a week with my girlfriend. I'd visited the US several times before with no hassles, it didn't occur to me that the heightened security measures might pose a problem.

After my fingerprints were scanned at the US immigration point in JFK, the rather ignorant and not overly friendly DHS official told me that the computer informed him I was for "special attention" and that I must follow him. He put my passport and green visa waiver form into a bright red envelope and took me down the hallway to this rather dingy room at the back, and told me to wait there. I politely asked if I could have a moment to explain the situation to my gf, but he refused and told me to just wait. There were rows of seats with lots of people, clearly of many different nationalities, waiting to be processed. At the front of the room was a raised desk with three or four DHS officials, tapping away at computers and slowly working their way through the files, calling people up to the desk. I went up to the desk to listen.

Some of the people being called up were told that they had violated the visa waiver conditions on their last stay - ie they'd stayed in the country for less than 90 days, or they'd failed to hand in the green visa waiver slip that lets them know you've left. At that point I began to get scared. What if my slip had got lost by the airlines on my last visit, and they thought I'd outstayed my welcome ? I'd have been shipped right back home. While I was contemplating this, more and more people were getting processed. Some were getting through, others were not; in particular they'd caught a guy who apparently had drug convictions. They allowed him in the country but arranged a court hearing which would hear the case for his ongoing residence. In many of the cases the DHS officials were speaking with quite stern and unfriendly voices, which was somewhat intimidating. I was wondering what could have happened. I'm squeaky clean and don't have so much as a parking ticket to my name. I've never been arrested or even spoken to strongly by the cops.

Finally, after around an hour and a half, they got to my folder, and called me up. The guy tapped his computer for a few minutes, then handed me my passport, gave a friendly smile, and told me I was free to go on. I took a risk and asked nicely, what had happened ? He explained that the fingerprint scanning system flags it up when fingerprints look similar to someone who is not supposed to be in the country, and whenever this happened it was checked and recorded. He assured me that it should not happen again.

At the time I was quite shocked and almost made up my mind never to return to the USA again. My poor gf was waiting outside the whole time - there was nobody to ask what had happened to me, she didn't know if I was going to get out or if I'd been deported or what. Surely they could have found a way for people to hook up with the rest of their group and explain things, so that they could wait back while the background checks were done ?

You don't have to be guilty.

[Rob T Firefly]

When I decide to rob banks or kill people, then I'll be worried.

Be worried.

Re:What next....really?

[iPaul]

I think that's the most disturbing part for me. Imagine getting picked up when landing in London because you were accidentally tagged as a "money launderer" by the Spanish. It would probably take weeks to get sorted out. In the mean time you could kiss your job good-bye. On top of that with so many databases sharing so much information, you might never be really "cleared." You might land in the US again and get detained for days while they sort out the fact that the Spanish tagged you as a "money launderer," even though it was fixed on the British copy of the Spanish database.

I saw a news item recently about a girl who'd been held for 30 days for having condoms full of flour, which airport official claimed were drugs. (Apparently filling condoms with flour is how the girls at her school make stress releaving squeezies - odd but eccentricity is not a crime). She spent 30 days in jail while substance was re-tested, only to discover it was, in fact, flour.

Another example is the US no-fly list. It has literally cost people their livelihoods when they were no longer able to fly. The worst part is they use really poor matching techniques like name matches - so anyone with certain names were not able to board airplanes! Another man interviewed by the Daily Show was labeled as Saddam Huessein's *dead* son, whose age would have required Saddam to have sired him at the age of 11!.

Here's another delicious example. People who buy large boats that were siezed as part of drug raids often get boarded by the coast guard. The identification number on the ship is almost impossible to change, and the coast guard decides to board the ship based on the registration number. Even though the original owner was arrested and his property was siezed.

Is this really a good idea?