Travelers to Europe May Face Fingerprinting

[kurth]

Travelers to Europe May Face Fingerprinting
By Ellen Nakashima and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 12, 2008; Page A01

The European Commission will propose tomorrow that all foreign travelers entering and leaving Europe, including U.S. citizens, should be fingerprinted. If approved by the European Parliament, the measure would mean that precisely identifying information on tens of millions of citizens will be added in coming years to databases that could be shared by friendly governments around the world.

The United States already requires that foreigners be fingerprinted and photographed before they enter the country. So does Japan. Now top European security officials want to follow suit, with travelers being fingerprinted and some also having their facial images stored in a Europe-wide database, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by The Washington Post.

The plan is part of a vast and growing trend on both sides of the Atlantic to collect and share data electronically to identify and track people in the name of national security and immigration control. U.S. government computers now have access to data on financial transactions; air travel details such as name, itinerary and credit card numbers; and the names of those sending and receiving express-mail packages -- even a description of the contents.

"It's the only way to be really sure about identifying people," said a European Commission official familiar with the new fingerprinting plan. "With biometric data, it's much easier to track people and know who has come in and who has gone out, including possible terrorists," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021102786.html

[bdamomma]

1. when will it stop????

no such thing as privacy anymore.:(

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Do they have to be my fingerprints?

Crimeny, it was only a few years ago when "fingerprint gloves" were science fiction. How long until they become very real?

[Angela Shelley]

3. That´s an interesting question.

Suppose you don´t want your fingerprints stored, so you buy "fingerprint gloves."

Whose fingerprints are on the gloves?

Maybe he/she was wanted for a crime, and you get detained?

Talk about being between a rock and a hard spot.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. I don't mean commercially available products

But suppose I worked as an elementary school teacher. Suppose we had an art project of making plaster hand casts, which of course would be left in the class room for the parents open-house next week. Suppose I took latex molds from the better casts, and sold those to an uncle with some shady "aquaintances."

Little Billy or Mary-Sue could find themselves in a heap of trouble when they take their high school trip to Paris and find that their prints were left behind at several unsolved murder scenes 10 years before.

Yeah, yeah, :tinfoilhat: But if a worldwide database of fingerprints is being developped "just because," we had better start treating our fingerprints exactly like any other personal information.

Damn, how am I going to run my hands through my shredder?

[Elspeth]

5. K & R

:kick: