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US Expands Airport Biometric Data Collection

Posted by kdawson on from the wear-gloves dept.

athloi sends word of an expansion of the US-VISIT program that now requires two fingerprints from foreign visitors arriving at scores of airports. Beginning later this year the US will be testing a system that collects 10 digital fingerprints, at 10 major points of entry. A US Homeland Security director assured EU officials that the program would operate under strict privacy rules. But he noted that the FBI and CIA will have access to the biometric data, which over time may expand beyond fingerprints.

7 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If I lived abroad, by VJ42 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I would seriously consider never coming to the USA again. I don't live in the USA, and have already come to the conclusion that I'm not going to visit*. My tourist ££s will go to France, Italy, Spain, Thailand etc. instead. The USA needs tourism; tourists don't need the USA, there's a big wide world that's not the USA still to visit. So, to the US govermet I say this: "it's your loss".

    *I've been before, but before all this "security" and I would dearly love to visit again.
    --
    If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
  2. Re:As a Canadian... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    When was the last time you flew from Canada to the US? When I did a couple of weeks ago from Montreal, I got fingerprinted by the DHS before boarding the plane -- US Customs being in the Canadian airport side doesn't mean they don't use the same customs procedure as the regular border checkpoints.

  3. Past doesn't inspire confidence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    "A US Homeland Security director assured EU officials that the program would operate under strict privacy rules. But he noted that the FBI and CIA will have access to the biometric data, which over time may expand beyond fingerprints."

    As past events have shown, the innocent have plenty to fear from this, even if they have nothing to hide.

    False positives could really ruin your day.

    On the other hand, if it were to happen, once a false positive ordeal is over, I suppose it could be rather lucrative, given the precident that has been set.

    And this guy was a U.S. citizen. Imagine the result if you were a citizen of another country and subject to the same sort of mistake.

  4. I'd beg to differ by everphilski · · Score: 5, Informative

    US's tourism accounts for 0.9% of GDP... that's nothing compared to china (5.4%), New Zealand (10%), Italy (12%), even Canada (2.5%) ... get the point? It is insignificant to the US, but critical to many other areas of the world ...

  5. So good, it had to be repeated by Presto+Vivace · · Score: 4, Informative

    It accomplishes even less than that. All the 9/11 terrorists had valid ID and weren't on watch lists.

  6. reason for the move to 10 fingers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Chertoff's plan to convert U.S. Visit to the [10 finger] standard comes after months of criticism from Congress, federal agencies and the media about incompatibilities between U.S. Visit's two fingerprints and the FBI's IAFIS criminal database, which uses 10 prints."

    http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/20_15/26 672-1.html

  7. Re:that's nice... by Original+Replica · · Score: 2, Informative

    fingerprints are a lot harder to fake than a passport.

    The Mythbusters would disagree with you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA4Xx5Noxyo

    --
    We are all just people.