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

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211–220 of 376 posts

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

#211
post #12

The point missing in the article is that, in order to enter the US, one needs to give the US Govt their photo and fingerprints ("biometric data") anyway. There are two options: visa-free with the biometric data passing on the wire (no hassle), or visa (a major hassle) and biometric data passing in the airport (a minor one). As a side note, the EU also collects photo and fingerprints from visitors now. Whereas in the…

>As a side note, the EU also collects photo and fingerprints from visitors now.

Does this also apply if you arrive by dinghy?

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

#212
post #12

The point missing in the article is that, in order to enter the US, one needs to give the US Govt their photo and fingerprints ("biometric data") anyway. There are two options: visa-free with the biometric data passing on the wire (no hassle), or visa (a major hassle) and biometric data passing in the airport (a minor one). As a side note, the EU also collects photo and fingerprints from visitors now. Whereas in the…

You don’t get fingerprints collected on departure, just on arrival. Unless you go through automated gates maybe?

Not my experience: I’ve been fingerprinted on both the arrival and the departure. There was no automatic gate on the departure, just an officer.

US passport holders only get fingerprinted on the arrival, as I’ve heard.

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

#213
post #211
post #12

The point missing in the article is that, in order to enter the US, one needs to give the US Govt their photo and fingerprints ("biometric data") anyway. There are two options: visa-free with the biometric data passing on the wire (no hassle), or visa (a major hassle) and biometric data passing in the airport (a minor one). As a side note, the EU also collects photo and fingerprints from visitors now. Whereas in the…

>As a side note, the EU also collects photo and fingerprints from visitors now. Does this also apply if you arrive by dinghy?

We must close this dinghy gap!

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

#214
The EU is not a serious institution, it's run by tasteless fraudsters

0 vision for the future

I could use much stronger words, but it's not worth it

How can you rally talents and visionaries when rulers are acting like that

Such a waste

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

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the EU you need to go through it both on every arrival and every departure. You absolutely don't. If you've done it once on your passport/ID you don't need to do it again. And infact there are fast track autonomous lanes that you can just scan your EU passport with biometric chip and fly through. (In theory, there's always idiots who don't realise they don't have it)

I just visited Italy. We absolutely passed through biometric scans on arrival and departure from FCO (US passports, vacation so no paper visa). And then again at DUB outbound (US pre-clearance, so the normal Global Entry kiosk). All of this was expected. The only thing that surprise me was there was no passport check or any other custom/immigration at Dublin on the inbound leg. We just walked from the arrival gate to…

Dublin is amazingly chill with passport/visa/immigration.

I once needed an actual stamp in my passport, and the agent literally apologized to me for taking up the space. I thought she might be messing with me, but not, entirely serious.

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

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US gets the data anyway, why the need for access?

It's to validate that the fingerprints of the person arriving are the same as the fingerprints of the person who got the passport.

Which you don't need to do, because the fingerprints are in the passport (cryptographically secure so only an authorized reader can access them, and only when able to OCR the inside of the passport). They're signed by your issuing government, so they're much harder to forge than the physical document.

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

#217
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U.S. border agents really are just worse. Much worse. (I can't say what racial profiling adds to that, I can only speak to my own experiences). I've been routinely grilled and extensively searched many times just crossing between the U.S. and Canada - the most hilarious instance being when I was crossing from Yukon Territory back to Alaska some 10 years ago. In Latin America, things are considerably more professional…

> In Latin America, things are considerably more professional, and the government officials don't act like they hate you and just want you to go away. Depends. Someone I know had a terrible experience crossing into Belize on a land border. Was held there for two hours while they "verified" something. Seemed like a power-tripping agent.

Maybe (hamfistedly) angling for a bribe to ‘expedite’?

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the analysis linked in TFA: "The automated query can be based on: * Identity information included in the application or in travel documents, such as name, date of birth, national ID number, and/or * the fingerprint of an individual." Sounds like they could send requests to that computer system just based on publicly available information on a person like name and date of birth, even if the person never applied f…

Well, a national ID number isnt usually publicly available info, even if it can be obtained by the US government through illicit means. But yeah, it does sound that way, but certainly not clear cut to me what the situation is. I.e. does the agreement involve clauses about what to do if this is abused? Do we have a way to detect if theyre using this on non-travellers? Etc.

> a national ID number isnt usually publicly available info

A couple of counterexamples:

Italy's "fiscal code" is generated with a simple algorithm which can be executed manually:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fiscal_code

Sweden's "personal identity number" is public information and can be looked up by anyone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed...

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

#219
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called racial profiling.

US citizens aren't fingerprinted on entry, regardless of race(!). They don't even have the fingerprint machines in the citizen line at any airport I've ever gone through, which is why I suspect GP went to the wrong place.

Every port of entry I’ve been in, they have the same setup at every booth, which definitely includes the fingerprint machines. Even Texas, though I just got waved through due to the creepy gait/face recognition thing without stopping.

Yay for our AI overlords or something?

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the US you only need to go through fingerprinting only once (or maybe "once per passport") I’ve entered the US something like 150 times over 20 years. Visa free (ESTA) and on a B1 tourist visa. I’ve been fingerprinted and photographed every single time.

As has been discussed elsewhere, this sounds more like you are flagged than SOP.

Never had a problem, never any hint or talk that anything is amiss. Always extremely routine.
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