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EU Plans to Require Biometrics for Visitors
bushwhacker2000 writes to tell us that the EU may soon be requiring travelers to provide biometric data before crossing into Europe. They are trying to soften the blow by offering "streamlined" services for frequent travelers but the end result seems the same. "The proposals, contained in draft documents examined by the International Herald Tribune and scheduled to go to the European Commission on Wednesday, were designed to bring the EU visa regime into line with a new era in which passports include biometric data. The commission, the EU executive, argues that migratory pressure, organized crime and terrorism are obvious challenges to the Union and that the bloc's border and visa policy needs to be brought up to date."
Doesn't sound so bad to me, a few peices of my soul for a chance to visit a place where my American dollars are now worth crap and I widely disliked... Indeed, a win win proposition.
Ugh.
:-(
One of the reasons I'm so worried to see the downward trend towards fascism in the United States is that in many ways Europe is not going in the opposite direction, it is simply lagging behind. Sure, I came to live in Switzerland, but I'm always seeing the same political abuses start to happen here just a few years after they start to happen in the United States, the same pro-corporations laws like the DMCA and the same trampling on people's rights, just a bit delayed.
Somehow this happening in the EU does not really surprise me.
Or is the biometric data stored in some central database? One must consider the weak points of this particular system, especially as far as the 'frequent traveller' system is concerned. If the scanner just checks the passport against the list of "OK" travelers, that's going to be easy enough to defeat; if it asks for fingerprints and facial features, that may be harder, but still quite possible to defeat with a little preparation time and some suitable research.
Of course, the human element on the manual checks will likely be the easiest to defeat, as it usually is.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
They are trying to soften the blow by offering "streamlined" services for frequent travelers but the end result seems the same
Translation: we want Americans to know what it feels like when we try and enter their country.
Summation 2
Since when are pictures and finger prints NOT biometric data?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If I copyright the images of my retinas and fingerprints, can I sue the governments for keeping a record of it without my permission?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Personally, I think this nonsense has more to do with xenophobia, racism, and political control than with combating actual terrorism.
When all else fails, run.
the EU should just ban the USA from visiting and vice versa, it would be much more convienient
perhaps we shall goto China or Russia this year, none of this fingerprint and eye photo crap at the US border and as a bonus we get treated like guests not criminals
so say goodbye to the US tourism industry RIP 2008
The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines.
The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as "blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's requirements.
According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said.
And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a ticket, a procedure that will take several days.
The data from the US's new electronic transport authorisation system is to be combined with extensive personal passenger details already being provided by EU countries to the US for the "profiling" of potential terrorists and assessment of other security risks.
thanks but ill stay at home and advise people not to visit the US on business or pleasure.
mission accomplished.
It IS the US's fault.
This is just tit-for-tat: the US requires the same things of Europeans entering the US, and the EU is returning the favor.
Chad. They have no biometrics at the border - you can just stroll right in, with nary a fingerprint reader or retina scanner in sight.
Do bring a machete, though.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
its like the old story about a guy who goes to the doctor.
the doctor says, "I'll need a stool stample, a blood sample, a urine sample and a semen sample."
the guy says to the doc, "here's my underwear; YOU sort it out!"
something tells me, though, that customs folks don't quite have any sense of humor... but that's the kind of 'bio data' I'd like to give them.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
We'll be harassing air travelers, while the (ever moving) eastern border is a proverbial highway for illegal travel. 'Cause Al-Qaeda prefers to fly first class before they blow themselves up, that will show them.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
I've just arrived in Japan, which has - following pressure from the US - introduced fingerprinting at the border for all foreigners (including those with residence rights, not just visitors). While the process was relatively smooth (put your index fingers on a little machine), it's been my first contact with the world of paranoid "anti-terrorist" biometrics and for me marks the end of an era where international travel has been an expression of freedom.
People missed the primary core part of this. If you have to take biometrics on entry, that means your own citizens as well as visitors. The EU biometric stuff has been going on for some time. Its all explained or hidden away in various guises but its there.
The 'Empire' is slowly moving from Utopian Europe to a darker phase.
And yes, I know, I know, if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. Only these people love to create new things wrong you may have done. In the UK now, if you smoke, drink, or happen to be fat, suddenly you've been added to the list. That autocratic disease is spreading.
You can bet your bottom dollar biometrics will be in the front line of 'taxing' holiday makers and frequent flyers, only the beginning off course - Plenty more to follow.
400 million WILL eventually regret allowing their leaders to create a new dictatorship, its just going to take time for people to wake up to the monster they have allowed to be created.
We`re all equal
What happens if you burn your finger(s) on your vacation?
Biometrics sounds like a good idea, but I can never justify the single point of failure involved with it. It seems like it would be very easy to get false negetives.
I use usb keys to authenticate on my desktops, and if a key were ever to fail, i have a backup in the safe. The key responds to the encryption keys stored on the flash disk, and uses the serial number of the device as an added protection against copying. This is a simple setup of pam_usb and udev.
I do woodworking as a hobby, and occasionally cook. It's not uncommon to cut/burn a finger. Also with they usb keys I only have two, one on my key ring, and one in a safe. I don't leave my keys or my passwords lying around, but compare that to your fingerprint. How many places do you leave your fingerprint throughout a day? A google search, $20, and a trip to the hardware store is all you need to lift a print.
I hear a lot of people promote biometrics as a huge breakthrough in security, but I just don't see how it can be practical.
Just my $0.02
Like the U.S. system of past and present...both.
The chipped passports have a copy of what is printed on the face plus the extra biometric bits, all of which is also stored in a database, including reconciled entries for your previous visits through passport control. If the printed information or chip output differ from the central copy, they know it has been tampered with. This is not a terribly large departure from what already has been happening for decades when they scan your passport or punch in the number to pull up the record manually. The only difference in any of this is that they're adding a couple extra fields that don't really lend themselves to visual inspection. The cross-border data sharing and centralized collection within each country isn't remotely a new idea.
Besides, the more "secure" the document gets in the sense of positively linking it to the person carrying it, the less frightful the consequences of losing it. Not long ago, if you were roughly the same height/weight/age/gender, you could pretty well just pick a passport out of a stack provided by the hotel maid service. I mean, 6'1" brown/brown 180lbs 30yo male isn't a very precise set of biometrics, which doesn't sound too terrible until someone matching your description smuggles drugs into the country on your passport before you realize it went missing. If they can solve the question of "is this REALLY you" with an iris scan and a fingerprint, roughly 99.9% of the stolen document industry will disappear leaving only the most ridiculous James Bond worthy scenarios to worry about.
The bottom line is that the document is an assertion of the holder's identity. You have a personal interest in ensuring that you are the only one who can use it to successfully make that assertion.
When the Nazi's were setting the ground work for their "final solution", they gathered census data starting in the early 30's.
The Hollerinth Tabulator machines streamlined the amounts of data that could be processed, thus they could ask more questions.
Some with insight, forsaw this increase is information gathering, and altered their answers to reflect a non-jewish ancestry.
However, they only needed 1 parent or grandparent to give the "correct" answer to link them to a Jewish ancestry(1/16th I believe).
Similarly today, there is little we can do. We are, as we would say in New Zealand, buggered.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Not exactly European Union. It says Schengen. That includes Switzerland. So Switzerland with all of its anonymous banking is going to require biometric data for people leaving and coming to the country? Why do I not think this will happen?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The article yesterday about electronics seizure at US airports bought out a lot of snotty, holier-than-thou trolls of European origin eager to mock the overly paranoid US airport "security" force.
I hope this current news item forces these folks to realize that this isn't just a US problem, it's a global problem with paranoia. And until there's global political climate change, flying internationally is just going to become more and more of a hassle for everyone.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
Some people say immigration is bad because it takes jobs away from the the natives. Migration control programmes such as those discussed are very often fuelled by such fears.
In a healthy free market economy, jobs are held by those who can contribute more to the economy for the least cost. It has been my observation that some people, once achieving some comfortable and secure lifestyle, stop innovating and become lazy sluggards, who, even if they spend 8-10 or more hours "at work", they produce little or no real tangible economic value. PHBs are a good example: While the economic contribution of a good manager is to provide sound planning and organisational design, PHBs merely walk around the office carrying a cup of tea, literally doing nothing. In theory, their contribution could become visible someday in a department or company crisis when a decision would be crucial, but my experience tells me that most PHBs would be unable to respond to any crisis in any intelligent way, and most of them stay employed thanks to connections and nepotism. The end result for the economy is great waste, inefficiency, lack of skills, and the development of a passive approach to life which hinders entrepreneurship, initiative, and innovation.
In such an economy, where a great number of people have learnt to live their life without earning it with their ability, thanks to nepotism, status, various social structures, etc, the appearance of a few migrants can have positive effects from an economic point of view: Migrants come, some of them having useful skills, and they renovate the economy. When employers notice that the migrants have real skills and are willing to work for lower wages, they will eventually fire the lazy sluggards and force them to take a more active approach to life and learn new skills, ie to become again actively useful in the economy. In this way, migrants help counterbalance the tendency of many humans to stop innovating once they achieve some security.
Knowing this, a certain number of migrants is not only tolerable but in fact should be highly wanted and desirable, as they have a legitimate and useful economic role to play in our economies (to wake up our lazy fellows). And it is not only highly educated migrants that should be in demand: Migrants with low education should be welcome as well, as they often help to fill gaps in an economy whose members increasingly move towards the service sector and higher-paying jobs.
There are, of course, some dangers from the influx of huge numbers of migrants. One danger is sociological and has its basis in animal behaviour: You can see that, for example, ants are aggressive towards ants from different colonies. Similarly, humans in general do have some passive aggressiveness hidden somewhere in their mind towards persons from different nations. There is, of course, some biological basis for this, as it helps teams of humans (tribes) secure resources and maintain family lineages. But in the modern era, with our developed economies and globalised communications, we need not worry so much about these concerns that belong to the prehistory eras. What we should do is to take care to not allow this passive subconscious aggressiveness become an activated state of mind and infect the conscious mind. This can happen to most people, without them realising it, when great numbers of migrants come into a country and interact with the locals. Seeing one migrant does not raise xenophobic tendencies, but suddenly seeing a thousand migrants out of your door may cause your subconscious tribal feelings to be activated and projected to the consciousness in a variety of ways (xenophobia, racism, economic protectionism, security paranoia, etc). When this happens to the majority of a native population, the results can be disastrous. We have seen it in history and such mistakes should not be repeated by civilised people.
So, how can we ensure that immigration results in positive economic contributions without triggering sociological problems?
Armed insurrection.
For somewhat less impact, writing to your local elected representative and your European parliament members may be a less dramatic and more appropriate starting point.