My wife and I are going to be traveling to Europe to visit her family and up till now have been avoiding flying because we're not comfortable going through the scanners or getting invasive pat downs, my wife is pregnant. So we've only flown when we could use the standard metal detectors. We're both citizens, she has dual citizenship.

My question is, which pre-approve travel programs should we be looking into? Will pre-check still help when traveling to Europe, or do we need global entry? Or is global entry just when we are returning for customs? It's all a bit confusing.

I also saw there are alternatives to the fingerprinting? I don't mind all the background checks but do they really need fingerprints, what is the alternative?

Thanks