Spiff

I'm not waiting to be first victim. It will be possible to create a fake finger from a digital file. Governments do not disclose privacy, how they will protect the collected data, nor do they say who they will share the information with.

Most importantly, they do not need this information. So, they can get bent. I'll spend my money elsewhere.

invisible

This too.

However there is a distinction if one does not travel due to safety reasons. But I wonder how long you are going to stay employed if you tell your boss "I will not go there because they abuse (fill the gap)"

cbn42

But if you are unable to articulate even one actual example of how fingerprints can be abused, then your concern is irrational and not justified.

Your signature and photograph are also digitized at the port of entry, but somehow you have no problem with that.



I really would like to know what is behind this obsession with fingerprinting. People seem convinced that it poses some sort of privacy or security risk, but no one has been able to come up with one single example of how being fingerprinted could pose such a risk, or even articulate a concrete hypothetical example.

invisible

It is matter of belief. Anything which is subject of belief belongs to religious matter and unless one really wants to engage in discussion whose religion is superior would not continue the conversation (or holy war, in other terms).

Pargeo

Not travelling to the countries I mentioned, plus Belarus and other places alike, is a matter of survival for me, if you like. The fact is I'm a very bad traveller! I try to comply, following the sacrosanct dictum of a wise traveller, 'When in Rome, do as Romans do', but every now and again I fail miserably, starting to speak out, laughing at statues and portraits of various saintly political leaders etc. Nobody likes that, not even the so called civilized world, but while the civilized world's reaction would limit itself to a couple of nasty looks, the uncivilized world could very well harm me physically. So, nothing heroic, nothing 'moralistic' - just the survival instinct. If this bans me from travelling to two thirds of the world, so what?
P.S. I said I'd never travel to those places, EVEN IF my employer ordered me to. Fortunately, my employer knows better.

GUWonder

... are you unaware that fingerprints in the possession of government have resulted in innocent people being harassed by government and falsely associated with crimes in some way or another?

Remember what happened to that lawyer from one of the PNW states after the Spanish train terrorist attacks?

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/1003...l/464344a.html

By the way, that's not even assuming a party with access to the info is motivated to use biometric info to "(re)create an 'investigative trail'".

Annalisa12

I don't think local laws would make me not go to a particular place. I do, however, worry about going to Asian countries because of their strict drug trafficking policies. Now, I am not a drinker, smoker and have never tried drugs but lets imagine that of all those people who get caught, one was actually innocent and somebody did plant drugs in their bags. I do worry about that in the back of my mind before the trip.

I don't want to be the next Schapelle Corby (I am not saying I believe she is innocent or guilty - I just don't know). I am just using her as the example of someone who said she was innocent as a baggage handler put drugs in her bag.

Leviticus

I am a complete travel whore and there is no place in the world that I would not visit based on their politics or laws. Ultimately the leadership of all countries in the world are corrupt and devious institutions that I can probably find something severe to disagree with. Instead, I just ignore it and try to enjoy the landscapes and the culture.

mandolino

I'd be interested to hear from people who really and genuinely wanted to go to a certain place but pulled out solely because of its laws.(rather than worries about personal safety)

Similarly from people whose work assignment required them to go to a certain place but they refused to go, on pain of dismissal, solely because of laws or policies.

My feeling is that, if you're not in one of those two categories, then you're just boycotting somewhere you never planned to go to anyway.

Spiff

If you want to pay me to give you a biometrics presentation, I'll be happy to take your money.

Otherwise, you are entitled to your own "beliefs", however foolish and uninformed they may be.

cbn42

Finally, someone posted an actual example.

However, false positives can happen with just about any method of identifying people. Thousands of people are currently wrongly in jail because of some false positive identification. My guess is that the rate of false positives for fingerprints is less than an officer's memory or a photograph or whatever other techniques are used. Therefore, using fingerprints is actually likely to decrease the odds of being wrongly accused.

SANspotter

This pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly. I don't like living my life in fear so I'll pretty much go anywhere and make the best of any situation.

GUWonder

Finally? People ought to spoon feed themselves rather than expect others to spoon feed them. I thought that spoon feeding on demand is reserved mainly for babies, not for capable, healthy adults.

Increased use of fingerprints increases the odds of being wrongly accused as more and more people are fingerprinted.

.... and given the article of faith people in the main seem to have in fingerprint matching being 100% accurate, the chances of being falsely accused and not recognized as being falsely accused rises as fingerprinting of the innocent increases.

celle

My biggest beef with fingerprinting is not that it's done, but that it's done selectively.

When a country only fingerprints "foreigners" and not its own citizens, it seems to imply that the country is in denial about the existence of its own "home grown" terrorists. The Boston bombings (as only one example) gives the lie to that belief.

Nobody wants to be fingerprinted, but at least be consistent with it.

kev888

Heh,
Reminds me of Japan. They fingerprint foreigners only, but their own citizens are exempt. The interesting thing is that all the terrorist attacks in Japan have been by home grown terrorists.

I believe a country has the right to do whatever is necessary to protect their own citizens, but they should at least be honest for what the true reasoning behind their policies are.