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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,
1984
...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? 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
Fingerprint databases are a very useful crime-fighting tool. The only objection to fingerprinting everyone (somewhere in elementary school) is the indignity of (mis)treating every citizen as a (potential) criminal.
Americans, however, are surprisingly tolerant of the government-imposed indignities — judging, for example, by their willingness to stand barefeet and beltless (belt's buckles are often metallic, you see) on the dirty floor in front of the TSA officers... Removing your footwear for inspection used to be optional (you could elect to be searched instead), but is now required since no one was objecting — except for a few freaks, like yours truly.
Fingerprinting non-citizens will not even raise the proverbial eye-brow of the nation...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Now, now, that's not true. There are indeed US citizens. All you need is enough money and you're still treated fairly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And I've spent more than a year living there. However, I'll be damned if I'll set foot in a country that brands me as a criminal the instant I step off the plane. It's no surprise the RIAA/MPAA comes from the same place... It's bad enough with the ridiculous video branding me when I just bought the damn movie.
Paranoia is nice under some circumstances, but this is just ridiculous. Like they actually think it'll do any good? It'll be really nice to know who blew up WTC v2.0 after the fact, yeah...
As it is now, I avoid travelling to the US -- No, I don't appear or sound middle eastern -- I just don't like the way things are headed south of the border, and I will not spend a single tourist dollar in a country that will illegally deport a fellow Canadian citizen to be tortured in Syria for a year.
:-) I tend to lean right -- but this police state crap has got to stop.)
At the moment, I will travel on business -- but if they want my fingerprints for a criminal database -- then I will not travel to the US at all. I will not consent to being fingerprinted for criminal database purposes just because I'm on a business trip.
(And I'm not one of the left leaning bleeding heart liberal types
Ian Ameline
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Just use a belt sander with 80 grit paper on it.
:)
Turn it on, place fingers on sand paper, hold as long as you can stand it. Repeat until prints are gone. No problem.
Finger prints are only 1/32 of an in deep. It is dead skin and serves no real purpose. I started sanding mine off several years ago when the state went to mandatory fingerprinting to get a drivers license. It is easy and the look on the persons face when you say "I don't have finger prints!" is just something else.
The other thing you can do is to cover the tips of your fingers with super glue. It works quite well and does not come off for some time.
> My fingerprints are in at least one government database
> (for non-criminal reasons). It doesn't bother me.
> When I decide to rob banks or kill people, then I'll be worried.
Remember that fingerprints in the database are stored as encoded strings describing the location of some branching points in the ridge patterns. Essentially a hash function.
Note that the data on which the hash is constructed is subject to scaling and rotation of the captured image. Note that selection of the points is hard in some people's patterns (because there may be unusually many branch points.
Now note that we are addding a very large amount of new prints to be processed, of which a much lower proportion will ever be needed than in the previous population of the database. There will be extreme pressure to do this quickly and cheaply with less-skilled operators. This will lead to many false matches.
We already have many cases of false matches leading to arrest of innocent people when fingerprint data is shared between FBI and Interpol (made worse by some differences in technical standards between different police organizations. And because most of the victims of these false positives will not be US voters, fixing the problems will not be a high priority.
If you really believe that mass processing of huge fingerprint databases is feasible with acceptably low error rates, you should advocate that a full set of prints for the FBI database should be taken with every US driver's license application. This would have enormous benefits if every fingerprint found at a crime scene could easily be matched. By raising the chance of solving crimes by an order of magnitude, it would create an enormous incentive for people not to commit crimes. But I don't know anyone who trusts the system enough to want this to be done.
Nonsense. Some of us are the consumed.
KFG
Just pray that you never have a job that actually requires you to travel anywhere. Actually it's already affecting US business and many companies are looking elsewhere. When you're an isolated third world country that no one visits and everyone trades else where will you still want to stay at home?
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
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
I always love the idea that many USians think basic human rights so important that only US citizens deserve them. Gitmo Logic.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
"computers can nowadays compare fingerprints with ease"
Yes, but since it has to display the photo of the person in order to properly do the print match, won't we get to a point where we can't go any faster? I mean, the human eye is only so fast. The whole notion of finger-print matching just wouldn't feel right if you don't see 10,000 faces stream across the screen before finally finding the match.
While I am 100% against fingerprinting CITIZENS of this country, I couldn't give a shit less if someone from outside of the US is fingerprinted.
That's extremely short-sighted. Did you miss the part about America giving the fingerprints back to the home country of the visitor? Presumably this is being done to evade whatever due-process rights exist in that country. What happens if that's reversed? I go to Canada and get fingerprinted -- Canada helpfully uploads my prints to the FBI database. My rights have been violated and I can't even complain because I "chose" to go to Canada.
This is the problem when people start rationalizing the erosion of our rights. Terrorism is just the latest excuse. Think of the War on Drugs (property forfeiture laws, expanded search powers). Think of DWIs (implied consent and compelled to give evidence against yourself). Think of the Japanese internment camps.
I'm sorry but the Constitution doesn't have a "national security" or "DWI" clause. You can't rationalize away the erosion of any rights. It's easy to support the fifth amendment until you see drunks using it to escape DWI convictions. It's easy to support the second amendment until you are held up at gunpoint. It's easy to support the first amendment until the KKK uses it.
The biggest defender of freedom stands up for the right of somebody he doesn't like to utilize those freedoms in a manner that he doesn't agree with. Anybody else is a hypocrite. And to them I say: You allowed this to happen.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Sure, sounds great to me. Common law goes back centuries when the police didn't have any tools other than eye witness accounts.
And the common law evolved because of abuses by those same authorities. What makes you think that DNA and fingerprints can't be abused? I don't think technology has changed the fact that we ought to regard the Government with suspicion.
Change one of those and it would be less than a decade before we have widespread fingerprinting and DNA tracking.
And why is that a good thing? You do realize that the overwhelming majority of criminals are caught because they screw up, right? It doesn't take magical CSI work to solve most crimes. Talk to any police officer. The cops aren't that much smarter then you or I. The criminals tend to be idiots. You have to ask yourself why the Government needs a database of fingerprints and DNA.
There is a part of me that wonders why public schools haven't added finger printing to their student ID process. If that single step was taken, within two generations it would become socially acceptable to fingerprint and id everyone.
And that's the day that my kids become home schooled. You aren't making a compelling argument for why we should stand for this.
All that needs to be changed is requiring a full set of prints for DL renewal or new DLs. We aren't quite there for DNA, but if we setup our system for fingerprints, how difficult would it be to add a string for your DNA? (Shouldn't be that hard.)
And again, why should we do this exactly?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I cannot tell you how exhausting that is.
It is exhausting. Here I am defending OJ for publishing his book or the Westboro Baptist Church for protesting at funerals.
The basic problem though is that if it's acceptable to silence them because we don't agree with what they stand for then it becomes acceptable to silence me when I criticize Gitmo. The problem with waiving constitutional rights for certain classes of criminals (drug dealers, terrorists, DWIs, child molesters all come to mind as the favorite bogeyman) is that it makes it ok to waive them for others.
"Free speech zones", the erosion of habeas corpus, the complete disregard for the 10th Amendment.... I think the Founding Fathers would be very disappointed in the direction that we've taken the United States in the last hundred years.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
While I am 100% against fingerprinting CITIZENS of this country, I couldn't give a shit less if someone from outside of the US is fingerprinted.
Well that's nice. What is your basis for being against fingerprinting citizens? Perhaps the Constitution and Bill of Rights, 4th Ammendment in particular, motivate your belief?
Well guess what. You won't find the word "citizen" anywhere in the 4th Ammendment or anywhere else in the Bill of Rights. They all say "people", and that isn't a synonym for "citizens". When the Constitution means citizens it says citizens.
A lot of people take for granted that our rights don't apply to non-citizens. This is simply non-factual; there are very few of our rights that only apply to citizens. The rest are for everyone.
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm pretty confident in my post. You should check my references for this.