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Japan to Start Fingerprinting Foreign Travelers
rabiddeity writes "If you're planning to visit Japan sometime in the near future, you should be aware of the welcome you'll get. Last year, Japan's parliament passed a measure requiring foreigners to submit their fingerprints when entering the country. The measures, which apply to all foreigners over 16 regardless of visa status, take effect tomorrow. The worst part: the fingerprints are stored in a national database for an "unspecified time", and will be made available to both domestic police and foreign governments."
Am I supposed to just accept that this violation-by-proxy is legal?
...for all of us gaijins going home for the holidays! Needless to say, I'm not pleased.
Bonus points for this idiot minister using a bullshit "a friend of a friend is in Al Quaeda, therefore all foreigners are dangerous" claim to justify this crap.
Yeah, Americans get high and mighty about these stories, but I am an American citizen (but of South Asian descent) and traveling between the U.S. and Japan with my American passport I have been treated pretty well up until now in Japanese airports (my parents on the other hand, who are not American citizens, got questioned pretty thorougly leaving Japan after visiting me, but my American passport-ed brother flew by), whereas I get grilled in the U.S. It sucks to be stuck in the crossfire, and I am sad that this place I love living is becoming more like the U.S., but the Americans started this stupid airport mess. And it's still better than always getting selected for "random" screening and taking off my shoes.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Whereas I'm just one of these crazy people who think they shouldn't have to show ID to travel.. even internationally.. let alone give fingerprints and have my picture taken.
Never forget that your government owns you.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Japan is one of few countries that maintain that you must renounce all other citizenship to become a citizen. Dual-citizenship is only permissible for children born to a Japanese and foreign couple, and only then until age 20, after which the individual is given two years to renounce one or the other.
Accept Japanese citizenship -- thanks but no thanks, I'd rather have the flexibility of my existing Canadian passport. If it means my whole family has to pack its bags and we move back to Canada, so that I can stop having my taxes go to support a repressive government that treats me like a criminal, I'll happily leave Japan to the demographic disaster looming on the horizon.
Given this country's low birthrate, aging population, and pension plan on the brink of collapse, immigration is the only answer. If the Japanese government believes that it can sustain population/economic growth while treating immigrants like criminals, this country will get what it deserves. The rest of us will be watching it collapse from the countries we've returned home to.
It so happens that Tokyo and Chicago are vying to be considered for the Summer Olympics in 2016. I would like to put together a campaign (from a variety of people, civil liberty/privacy groups, etc) to ask that the International Olympic Committee reject any host city application whose nation requires photographing/fingerprinting as a condition of entry. Such a condition violates the human dignity principle of the IOC charter, as well as potentially surpressing visitors to that host nation (since many believe that the dropoff in visitors to the US is related to US-VISIT.
Comments on your comments:
1. I didn't say that others with different visas couldn't do this as well. As you say anyone with a re-entry permit can, but then you have to explain the re-entry permit system to everyone. The only real point is that a special ability that you were granted as a resident of Japan is now being taken away and the value of your status in Japan has been reduced to nil as far as airport immigration is concerned. You, me and those lovely Filipino "entertainers" will have to shift over to the visitor counters.
2. Get real. That four years is a theoretical minimum that almost never applies in practice. It took me 5 years and I was married to a Japanese and already had one kid. My friends have all taken MUCH longer. The requirements to get a Permanent Residence have also become MUCH stricter as of late.
3. Yes I do. There has been a LOT of discussion about this on JapanProbe.com, JapanToday.com and JapanTimes.com. Although current residents have spotted the camera and fingerprint machines at the Japanese passport counters they has been no guarantee that they will be used there unless there is an overflow of foreign tourists. We'll see in a couple of days when the lines at immigration stretch back to the planes.
4. That's obvious, You'll always pick the the shorter lines but every single time I've entered over the past 10 years the Japanese lines have always been shorter. In any case I've never found the visitor counters faster. if you're heading over to the Japanese counters they can assume you already are legit.
5. This is confusing. You don't renew a permanent resident permit. The maximum length of a re-entry permit is 3 years for regular visa holders and permanent residents. There is a 5-year re-entry permit that can only be obtained by Special Permanent Residents (The resident Koreans for the most part). The validity of a multiple re-entry permit can usually only be affected by the expiry of your Alien Registration Card or passport.
Your last two points made me chuckle. I have already been fingerprinted by the Ward office. I started living permanently in Japan in 1986. The advancement we permanent residents were able to achieve by the removal of the fingerprinting requirement is now being taken away. The most important point to remember is that Japanese are NEVER fingerprinted unless they have been found guilty of a crime. I don't know for certain that Japanese applying for high-security positions aren't fingerprinted but knowing the cultural stigma associated with it, I think it unlikely. The usual excuse is that the Japanese have koseki so they don't need that form of identification.
And finally, yes, it is possible and I time myself to try and set a new record but that will no longer be possible. A sub 5-minute transition requires it just being myself with only a backpack at a brisk jog from the jetway without having to take the shuttle at terminal 2. No-one lined up at the Japanese and re-entrant's immigration counters with a friendly young male officer who tend to want to get rid of you quicker then a run down the escalators and use the same young male officer trick at customs walking up to him with passport open at the eijukyouka page and saying "Konnichiwa, eijusha desu kedo, kyou shucho kara kaetekimashita. That gets me through without them even opening my pack. Then it's just another little sprint down to the Skyliner ticket counter.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Isn't it rather easy to provide fake fingerprints? Using their kitchen-sink laboratory, the Mythbusters created false prints which were good enough to fool the most expensive fingerprint door locks. Are the scanners at airports any more sophisticated?
The first time I went back to renew my spousal visa, I just brought the forms and the money. I didn't bring the family register or certificate of address or any of the ridiculous supporting documentation you need to get from all over Japan (okay, where we live now, and where she grew up). Why would I need all that stuff? We had just submitted it all 12 months before. I figured I was just showing up to say "Still here; still married; please renew my visa." But after waiting a couple hours to get to the counter, the lady was like, "where is all the information?"
I had no idea that I was required to apply for a new spousal visa. I wasn't renewing, I was reapplying!
And this just days before my visa was running out! I thought I was going to be deported!
My wife came in and worked her persuasive magic (that's why I married her--I saw no other choice!) and got them to count my little form as "starting the process" so I wouldn't be deported, and even talked them into giving me a 3-year visa, which they said they would not do.
The point of the story is that it doesn't matter how integrated you are; it doesn't matter if your most immediate family is Japanese; it doesn't matter if you are gainfully employed. The only thing that matters about you is that you are NOT JAPANESE, and therefore are not quite human in the eyes of the law.
Someone already mentioned this, but just look at the famous cases of foreigners being murdered over here. The last famous case (not far from where I live), a guy killed a female English teacher, nine police officers came to his house, and he escaped.
Barefoot.
BY RUNNING PAST THE COPS AND OUT HIS FRONT DOOR.
They still haven't found him. They won't.
That would require looking.