GUWonder

Given passport control personnel are far from perfect at positively or negatively matching persons against passports, more and more governments seem to be pushing for more and more fingerprint scanning of "international" arrivals regardless of citizenship/nationality.

The Swedish interior minister has jumped on the bandwagon to pursue this -- apparently in light of Sweden having interdicted the second-most "look-alikes" coming in at its Schengen airports or entry last year. [Only France caught more look-alikes.] He wants it applied to all passport users (even EU passport holders) entering the Schengen Zone at any and all Swedish ports of entry.

Here's a bit of this:

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/...passport-fraud

ffsim

I don't really see anything wrong with the fingerprint scan proposal if the purpose is to compare an arriving passenger's fingerprints to those stored in a biometric passport. Passport control officers would basically be using the scan as a method of matching the passport holder to the passport owner. In my view, it's no different than the agent using his/her eyes to compare an arriving passenger's face to the picture contained in the passport.

However, my opinion would quickly change if the proposal includes the provision to store fingerprints locally or in some regional or EU database...

GUWonder

Even if the EU or EU member state doesn't intend to store the fingerprints on an EU or EU member state database, I would not be surprised if the US, UK or select other governmental or contracted parties would be making every attempt to swipe the info and store it, and then get it and use it.

Not all biometric passports store fingerprint data, so the comparison may have to be done against something else stored if the passenger fingerprints are to be compared.

Schmurrr

Agreed. US agencies are grabbing biometric data wherever they can. Texas requires a full set of fingerprints to get a driver's license, and the official reasoning for it is preventing driver's license renewal fraud. Getting a driver's license in Texas now is rather like getting booked. To get licensed as an architect or engineer in Texas, you have to provide a full set of prints, too, though I've yet to see any data that suggest that the practice of architecture or engineering is indicative of high criminal propensity. In any case, it's pointless as a licensure requirement: Someone with ill intent will either not get licensed or will forge a license.

GUWonder

And that kind of ill intent won't even be the worst of it.

It's already possible to use electronically stored fingerprints to forge fingerprints so as to impersonate or frame individuals. And absent the ability and willingness of the government to not use fingerprints unless DNA-sampling from excreted oil (or dead skin cells) -- if any -- was part and parcel of the fingerprint matching used in a criminal or intelligence investigation, this may result in innocent people being falsely convicted or otherwise extrajudicially subject to harassment or who knows what.
It would be foolish to believe that governments are saints and no intelligence service will ever frame someone of a crime for which an individual may be innocent.

Randyk47

I guess what worries me is that the government, and actually pretty much anybody who collects personal information, has shown an inability to keep information out of the hands of a determined person or entity. It's almost like a challenge.....here's an anvil and a rubber mallet....given enough time somebody will figure out how to break the anvil with the rubber mallet.

SeriouslyLost

Many (most?) do, however, store the photo image and that can be used for recognition via recognition technology.

Coincidentally, I was reading the New Zealand Immigration department is starting a project next quarter to use facial recognition tech and data matching against the passports and issuing authority database for entry purposes. Just use case and road map study at this point, but from what I was reading, likely to go into effect if they can be certain the issuing authority data is secure, accessible in real time, and reliable.

GUWonder

FRT sales/purchases for this purpose have indeed ramped up big time. It's certainly been making my acquaintances, near and dear or otherwise, a pretty penny and then some; but it is known that FRT isn't perfect and has negative and positive match error issues too. Most of the public has little to no clue that FRT is being used very extensively in public areas .... inclusive of airports.

FRT stored data may end up being misused too, but I have doubts that it is as easy to effectively misuse as fingerprint data.

The passport control types in neighboring Australia were participants in a study that showed how unreliable they are at matching pictures with people in front of them.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/sc...ing-uk-4071403

Many a toddler would be as or more effective in face matching games.

petaluma1

I would think that all it would take is a skilled make-up artist, together with some minor plastic surgery, to defeat FRT.

GUWonder

Possible, more to avoid a FRT match than to achieve one. That said, extensive facial plastic surgery has been known to result in the death of some with a history of fraudulent ID use. And FRT's margins are such that it's well possible for look-alikes to fool authoriites as long as the doc is for a very close look-alike.

I do find the governmental obsession about ID and biometrics use at airports of entry so very interesting. While it's driven by concerns to mainly stop asylum-seekers, refugees and economic migrants at airports, packaged with a desire to interdict the travels of terrorists and various other serious transnational criminals, surface transport routes can be rather readily utilized to travel and enter without documentation despite the authorities' wishes.

petaluma1

Most definitely.

My sister and I look so much alike that I'm sure we could get away with exchanging ID's and no one would ever know.

GUWonder

Australia's government is busting out the bucks for fingerprint scanning of international arrival pax, and it wants to mandate the fingerprint capture for young children too.