The EU is about to sell our most sensitive data to the US for visa-free travel

Post by bigfishrunning » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 12:58 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #5

raxxorraxor wrote: post #2

As a European these texts are always a bit embarrassing. The evil USA that abuses our data... No, European countries suck completely on their own. There are people in jail without due process, we have histories full of systematic abuse of children/people with disabilities in care units, blatant disregard for constitutional rights by executive forces and you have these cases like this surfacing every other week. You d…

There is a clear difference between a local system that has access to your data, and a foreign one. You have no way to vote the foreign entity out of power, and have no say over what they are doing with your data

Post by victorbjorklund » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #10

dgellow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a clear difference between a local system that has access to your data, and a foreign one. You have no way to vote the foreign entity out of power, and have no say over what they are doing with your data

in the EU you have no way to vote for things to change either

Post by dsomers » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #10

dgellow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a clear difference between a local system that has access to your data, and a foreign one. You have no way to vote the foreign entity out of power, and have no say over what they are doing with your data

in the EU you have no way to vote for things to change either

Post by basisword » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 1:06 PM UTC

christkv wrote: post #20

cm2187 wrote: post #18

I fail to understand the distinction between an ESTA and a visa to be honest. You need to do the paperwork in advance, pay, provide all sort of personal information, and it can be denied, and if approved only for a limited amount of time. Given that both the EU and the UK have reciprocated, it is a fiction that there exists some visa free travel between these 3 zones. And the more hassle you create, the less tourism…

All it means that you do not have to go to the embassy and stand in line

Post by some_random » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 1:07 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #14

It's not clear to me if this would allow access to all biometric data, or "just" to that of people crossing the US border? And for the latter, what data are we talking about? If it's mostly fingerprints, don't those already get collected upon crossing the border? And can't they already be read from a passport's chip?