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Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

arunraghavan.net

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#211

Post by sangnoir »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #195
pandaman wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like someone processing your next visa application getting automatically collected data on your previous visits from all kinds of sources public and private and seeing that you lied about your visit the last time.

What sources would keep track of foreigners doing private business meetings and conferences?

Clearview[1] is not shy about selling its facial recognition services to government agencies and continues to scrape social media for photographs. It is within the realm of possibility that the foreign service officer who issues visas may query a Clearview product for photos of a visa applicant, and get a detailed picture (ha!) about the subjects activities at a conference while they were on a tourist visa.

1. https://www.clearview.ai/

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#212

Post by 8note »

2143 wrote: post #143
mhitza wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought EU citizens no longer need a visa Overwhelming majority yes, exceptions are citizens of: Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus.

What's different about those three countries?

Cyprus has a land dispute with the US.

The Americans thought Turkey should run it to avoid them taking up a communist government

There's still un peacekeepers there keeping the conflict quiet iirc

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#213

Post by soligern »

i_no_can_eat wrote: post #25

There is another side to this. Whenever I have organized conferences, I end up receiving lots of requests for invitation letters, typically from researchers in India, for Visa purposes. I absolutely understand this, and I have always done my best to accommodate these requests. But this is time-consuming, and it is very annoying when those researchers (who are sometimes also scheduled to speak) never show up, and neve…

It’s trivial as an Indian to get a tourist visa to Europe. I really doubt this is a valid scheme since it’s harder to do than the regular way.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#214

Post by FredPret »

leephillips wrote: post #137

If you intend your conference to be “international” in any sense, do not hold it in the United States (I am a U.S. citizen). Here is just one example for why: https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html The U.S. makes it extremely difficult to visit, routinely denying visas to all kinds of people with no explanation.

Glad that guy finally got it. I guess he’s definitely not a spy after all that checking!

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#215

Post by FredPret »

I was born in the 3rd world and moved to Canada.

Getting a visitor’s visa for Europe: excruciating, and they’re extremely stingy with how long it’s valid for. Lots of my friends & colleagues got rejected outright.

UK: excruciating as well, and made me feel like a piece of shit in the airport.

Canada: very hard, very detailed, but valid for ten years. Very nice when you get there.

USA: one minute interview, three day wait, no problems.

To be fair, the US had reams of info on me at this point.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#216

Post by probably_wrong »

dekervin wrote: post #204
_8j50 wrote: post #134

No excuse for not having a remote only alternative.

I am also interested if someone can chimenin. What's the current status regarding remote?

I can speak for the ACL conferences (disclaimer: which I volunteered to organize a couple times)

Streaming the talks, having questions via chat, putting all papers and posters online, multiple chat rooms, this is all there. Content-wise you can access everything. And since remote participants don't eat, their fee is a bit lower. There are also experiments on making poster sessions more interactive, but no one wants to use shared headphones in a loud room to talk to the (remote) authors.

The real challenge is: how do you get those attending in person to interact with those that are virtual only? Will you take out your phone and hang around in the chat rooms during the break?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#217

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

youngtaff wrote: post #207
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long weekend "city breaks" are pretty common amongst the UK middle classes. In Europe with a 1-3 hour time difference and a 1-4 hour flight, yes. In New York with a 5-hour time difference and an 8-hour flight, not so common. I'm sure that it happens, but it's not at all common. Jetlag alone would make that an athletic event, if your "leaving front door, returning back to front door" time is under 72 hours.

Long weekends in NY aren’t that uncommon from the UK

Not nearly as common as long weekends in Paris, Spain, Italy, etc.

Now extrapolate that to "long weekend in California." and it's again much less common.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#218

Post by filoleg »

paganel wrote: post #175
martin8412 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess I shouldn't have said that I was attending DEF CON to the CBP agent at Dublin Airport, but I was just told to have a nice time in Vegas

For all intents and purposes you most probably had no problems with this test [1], which is another problem that does not get explicitly mentioned that often (the author of the post alludes to it when writing about "by post-colonial geopolitics") [1] https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/044/241/ski...

A pretty bad faith assumption that turned out to be factually incorrect. The OP elaborated in another comment that them and their friends that had issues with visas were from Russia. I am fairly certain that they are more likely than not to pass that "test" you referenced.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#219

Post by devilbunny »

yarpen_z wrote: post #39
ghaff wrote: post #22

Something else to be aware of--which I've heard second hand--is saying anything that implies you'll be in the country to work. This can potentially include an honorarium, travel expenses covered, etc. Just something to watch. (As a US passport holder) attending conferences in most countries, much less answering some emails, without a specific business visa has never been an issue for me personally, but it can be an i…

I travel on a B1/B2 visa for conferences. When asked for the purpose of my visit, a common follow-up question is if I am going to receive any remuneration for my talk. It's a tricky question since sometimes speakers receive a reimbursement for travel costs. I imagine that answering "yes" might cause you a lot of headache.

The (usually) technically correct response is that your company will reimburse you in your home country.

My father-in-law is a salesman for women's apparel. Two of his largest lines are based in Canada, so he has to go there at least twice a year for sales meetings. However, his reimbursement is entirely covered by their US subsidiary. It's a working visa, but granted on entry and prohibits work that will be paid for in Canada (e.g., he can take orders for products that will be shipped to the US, but not for those that will be shipped to Canada).

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#220

Post by devilbunny »

tough wrote: post #13
sampo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side note: EU is planning to retaliate, and just as US is requiring ESTA from EU citizens traveling to US, in 2024 EU will start to require a similar application caller ETIAS, from US citizens traveling to EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Travel_Information_an...

People on twitter seems to think this is the -end- of American tourism for Europe, funny how just bringing the same standards suddenly makes us a no-visiting place. FFS

Yeah, it's just hyperventilating. If I'm spending five-digit sums of money on a trip to Europe, an extra $10-20 per person for some electronic nonsense is not going to stop the trip. It's a hassle, sure, but a pretty small one.
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