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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

#321

Post by leonidasrup »

whimsicalism wrote: post #240
Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate all this biometric scanning on all sides. As an American it makes me not want to visit the EU to avoid being scanned, and I'd understand the other way too if an EU member was visiting the us. In the US there have been notorious mistakes of using biometrics to falsely recognize an unknown criminal. Does this happen in the EU too? It's probably too late but we should try to get rid of this.

I suspect that false imprisonment/recognition cases are lessened with biometrics, not increased. I absolutely believe you can point me to individual cases though.

All the biometrics technologies are not perfect, e.g. there is a small chance of false positive, be it fingerprints, DNA, hair analysis, etc.

Veritasium had a nice video about this biometrics errors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvcesPWvUIc

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

#322

Post by iso1631 »

joshuaissac wrote: post #223
iso1631 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you land at Heathrow you don't go pass passport control if you change onto another international flight. You go through security and then into the departure lounge. Obviously if you land at Heathrow and fly out of Manchester then sure you have to immigrate, but not at the same airport. Same at Dubai and Qatar, Helsinki and Frankfurt, Singapore. and Seoul. Indeed last time I transited Seoul I stayed in a hotel air…

> land at Heathrow you don't go pass passport control if you change onto another international flight. You go through security and then into the departure lounge. This requires a Direct Airside Transit visa, unless you are a citizen of one of the exempt countries or have a visa/residence permit from certain countries (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Schengen). Applying for this visa involves going to the…

majority of countries don't need an airside transit, from Bhutan to Kazakhstan, Indonesia to Venezuela, hell even North Korea.

A US citizen flying New York to London to Egypt does not need to pay £20 for an ETA "visa waiver" to transfer in London. A UK citizen flying London to New York to Lima does need to pay for an ESTA

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

#323

Post by maratc »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #286
florakel wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, if you don’t change your passport you only have to scan your fingerprints once in the EU.

If you have a recent EU passport (like 6-8 years), biometrics like fingerprints are already in the chip, and you won't need to be fingerprinted upon arrival or departure, at least in theory, I wouldn't be surprised if some bureaucrat decided that the passport data can't be trusted and we'll fingerprint everybody anyway.

We're not talking about people who have an EU passport, we're talking about those who want to enter the EU with a non-EU passport. These people get fingerprinted on entry (and some of them on exit too) since 2025.

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

#324

Post by maratc »

rypskar wrote: post #319
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.

Is that good or bad? Maybe a naive thought but the first I think is that check every time is to check biometrics matches with what is in the passport without storing them, checking only once mean your picture and fingerprint is stored a central place and is used in combination to later verify that the passport is yours

Before this change, my average time for EU immigration check was 10-20 min. After this change, it's 2-3 hours. Is that good or bad?

I don't care much about "verify that the passport is yours". For centuries, the person presenting the passport was supposed to be the owner of it, with their photo (aka "biometrics") as a proof. Comparing your passport picture with your face is what border controls have been doing since forever.

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

#325

Post by maratc »

testing22321 wrote: post #220
jasonlotito wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, entering the US an average of 7.5 times each year is hardly usual, unless one's a Canadian living near the border and jumping to a Costco on the other side.

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

#326

Post by maratc »

markdown wrote: post #304
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…

> visa (a major hassle) and biometric data passing in the airport (a minor one). Since US-issued visas are multiple entry for 10yrs, it's relatively not a hassle at all.

   > US-issued visas are multiple entry for 10yrs
Some of them but definitely not all of them.

   > it's relatively not a hassle at all
I guess you have never had to hunt for the online queue at the embassy and never had to travel (potentially hundreds of miles) for the interview at that embassy. In which case, lucky you! However "it's not a hassle for me" is different from "it's not a hassle at all".

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

#327

Post by rypskar »

maratc wrote: post #324
rypskar wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that good or bad? Maybe a naive thought but the first I think is that check every time is to check biometrics matches with what is in the passport without storing them, checking only once mean your picture and fingerprint is stored a central place and is used in combination to later verify that the passport is yours

Before this change, my average time for EU immigration check was 10-20 min. After this change, it's 2-3 hours. Is that good or bad? I don't care much about "verify that the passport is yours". For centuries, the person presenting the passport was supposed to be the owner of it, with their photo (aka "biometrics") as a proof. Comparing your passport picture with your face is what border controls have been doing since…

That is clearly bad. I was commenting based on the privacy point of it, not the user experience. On the privacy part it is also strange that fingerprints, something we leave copy off all over the place, is considered private and safe information, instead of something that is easy to copy and relatively easy to spoof

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

#328

Post by maratc »

rypskar wrote: post #327
maratc wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before this change, my average time for EU immigration check was 10-20 min. After this change, it's 2-3 hours. Is that good or bad? I don't care much about "verify that the passport is yours". For centuries, the person presenting the passport was supposed to be the owner of it, with their photo (aka "biometrics") as a proof. Comparing your passport picture with your face is what border controls have been doing since…

That is clearly bad. I was commenting based on the privacy point of it, not the user experience. On the privacy part it is also strange that fingerprints, something we leave copy off all over the place, is considered private and safe information, instead of something that is easy to copy and relatively easy to spoof

The linked article argues that our pictures and fingerprints are "our most sensitive data" and it's bad giving it to anyone, like the US Government. I tend to agree on the "sensitive" part but not sure I agree on "US Govt" part.

The fact that we leave fingerprints everywhere is hardly relevant, considering the costs of retrieving and storing them en masse are astronomical.

The licence plates on our cars are out in the open for everyone to see, and yet when a private company collects them and makes a searchable database out of it -- with locations and timestamps -- making it possible for anyone with access to build traceable paths of all of our movements since forever, it results in people getting enraged, and in my opinion justifiably so.

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

#329

Post by eesmith »

whimsicalism wrote: post #235
beej71 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A national ID system (standard in effectively all European countries) is table stakes for state capacity. I find the RealID opposition baffling.

The major European exception being the UK, which doesn't issue identity cards and somehow manages. (Apparently Andorra doesn't either.)

You might consider it part of the Anglosphere mentality as Canada, the US, Australia, the Bahamas, and New Zealand don't have national ID.

I've never understood the problem that RealID is supposed to solve.

How is it TSA can accept a Veteran Health Identification Card or photo identification card issued by a federally recognized tribe, and the passports from every country in the world, but not a state-issued ID which is not REAL ID-compliant?

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

#330

Post by maratc »

input_sh wrote: post #228
smallstepforman wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish it was 20-30 minutes. Try 2-3 hours.

Definitely depends on the ratio of first time visitors since the introduction of the EES system (whose data needs collecting) vs returning visitors (whose data only needs verifying). I was going by my last experience, but I waited way longer than an hour in the past.

I don't think that "collecting" vs "verifying" thing practically differs in anything (except for maybe intent that I don't really care for).

They printed four of my fingers the first time (presumably for "collecting") and the same four fingers the second time (presumably for "verifying"), so it was the same procedure, taking the same time. Taking a picture of me also took the same time in both cases (I had to position myself in the frame "just right".)

With that, it should take the same time "collecting" from X people as it would "verifying" X people, and so the ratio of "first-time" visitors is irrelevant.

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