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

#251

Post by rdl »

whimsicalism wrote: post #243
throw-the-towel wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird. When I enter France from outside Schengen they don't fingerprint me, and I'm not even a European citizen.

Maybe not at land crossings. I just exited from Portugal and got fingerprinted on exit and entry. Granted I was using my US passport, not my EU

EU changed a lot this year (EU EES and ETIAS, long delayed), so this is probably different now than it was for some people before. It should be passport + biometric in and out, with a passport and biometric enrolled once as well, and visa-free stay duration (and other activities, like criminal stuff) logged against that record as well. Previously if you entered in one country and exited in another there wasn't really any closure of the record, so they effectively didn't care, and you could stay in EU indefinitely (and enter/exit much more while also overstaying, especially if you had multiple passports or could enter/exit from different countries).

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

#253

Post by dralley »

tremon wrote: post #163
some_random wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want the US to have your date of birth, photo, fingerprints, etc then don't go to the US. It's that easy.

Also don't have a Facebook account, don't shop with Amazon, don't use an Android or Apple phone, don't work for a company that uses Office365. Sounds real easy doesn't it?

Most of those don't require fingerprints or photos. Those that require addresses, do so because they're literally billing and/or shipping items to you. And none of them is comparable to physically entering another country.

I, a US citizen, got fingerprinted by passport control in Austria 2 weeks ago, and they took a picture of my face and asked for personal details. That's pretty much how passport control works universally in any developed country, only the "how they get the information" changes. Sometimes they already have it and sometimes they ask for it.

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

#254

Post by edelbitter »

tokai wrote: post #24

»It is on this basis that EU countries would then adopt their own bilateral EBSP agreements directly with the US (or adapt their existing arrangements).« So nobody has sold anybody out yet. The solution is to never visit the USA.

>The solution is to never visit the USA.

The negotiation is only necessitated by the insistence on making travel not a prerequisite for potential harm. The US requests to query information beyond the validity of documents they can prove to have been physically presented to US officers.

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

#255

Post by maratc »

DocTomoe wrote: post #230
maratc wrote: 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…

With the major distinction being that a lot of Europeans have absolutely no intention of ever visiting the United States, a country with a history of sometimes more, sometimes less hostility and aggressive intelligence agencies. If you want to visit a hellhole, go through the hassle. But don't hand out all of our data just because you want to do joyrides.

Can't see where "the major distinction" lies. It's also true that a lot of US citizens have absolutely no intention of ever visiting Europe -- as to hostilities, well the last two World Wars didn't exactly start in the US.

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

#256

Post by maratc »

florakel wrote: post #231
maratc wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have just returned from the EU last week and I have been fingerprinted twice — once on entry and once on exit. The US passport holders get fingerprinted on entry only, as I’ve heard.

Ok, weird, I don’t know how the system works then. My wife is Colombian and on her last entry she just scanned her passport and that was it.

If you're an EU citizen, it could be that your wife has an EU residence permit. The rules for EU residents are different.

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

#257

Post by edelbitter »

rocqua wrote: post #41

Under the assumption that this framework is somewhat sane and only shares biometric data of those people who actually request an ESTA, I don't see the issue. This data already leaks whenever you travel legally to the US, because they take it from you as a requirement of entry. All this does is let them check the data they take on entry against the provided data. Which seems fair. The fact this data is already in pass…

> those people who actually request an ESTA

I order to know who actually requested it, information needs to be shared that previously was not. (I can think of technical schemes to limit this to less scary recipients and data, but however you do it, some necessary side-effect remains: Citizens of the EU who do not make such request cannot remain entirely unaffected.)

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

#258

Post by matchstickman23 »

beej71 wrote: post #128
maratc wrote: 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…

This all reminds me about how RealID was vital to secure us from terrorism, and it took 20 years to get it in place... with no significant terrorist actions in that timeframe. IMHO this level of tracking ain't worth the safety gained. Seems like safety gain is just the excuse at this point.

Not to mention that to get around RealID with flights, you just have to pay $45 and you're good to go. Since we all know that bad actors don't have access to that sort of money...

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

#259

Post by sam_lowry_ »

T-A wrote: post #218
eigenspace wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Belgian National Number is your birth date, then an increment from 1 to 999 for every baby born that day, then a base-97 checksum.

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

#260

Post by ablob »

dgellow wrote: post #123
bigfishrunning wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have no say over what they are doing with your data It seems like you already have no say over what they're doing with your data, and they're selling it to the US.

We (Europeans) have a say, there are mechanisms to block the EU council, such as European courts. We also have representatives that we elect. We don’t have similar things for the US

Given the recent chat control disaster I'd say our say is rather slim when it matters. Just put a decision into urgency mode (even though technically that's only allowed for the first hearing) and let it be a default pass unless two thirds reject the proposition. If it hits the courtrooms, rewrite it a little bit and effectively keep the status quo.

I might be misinformed, but I believe that American citizens have a way of forcing specific regulation instead of only forcing it to be considered. That would be something we don't have in the EU. So in the end it might just even out in that regard.

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