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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

#281

Post by bigyabai »

villish wrote: post #277
shiandow wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. accessing my personal data causes immediate harm and completely unacceptable risk.

and yet you use american sites and services like this one, where you freely give even more personal data than fingerprints like your interests, thoughts, and more! I see comments like this all over hackernews but the truth is you actually don't care. You have a choice to not use HN/Reddit/YouTube/whatever but here you are.

This is a bad-faith conflation of personal data with openly-shared information. It's not contradictory at all to use HN if you're disgusted by the analytics of Reddit or X.

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

#282

Post by rafram »

miki123211 wrote: post #221
ninalanyon wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they manage that? Do you have to visit a government office to get a passport? I only have a UK passport and it definitely does not include my finger prints as it was obtained by post.

Yes. In fact, you have to do it twice; once to apply and once to receive it. In Poland at least, the queues are often a few weeks long, and you have to book online in advance. If it's summer season and you need to travel soon, you usually have to go to some office in Buttfuckville at the other end of the country to get a reasonable date. Passport office hunting is an established practice for people who need one ASAP.…

The process in the US is you open an online form, type in your details, and upload a JPEG of your face! Then you receive a passport in the mail a few weeks later! I would say that is a lot less painful than the Polish process.

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

#283

Post by alistairSH »

jltsiren wrote: post #250
alistairSH wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ireland is not in Schengen, so you were doing an international-to-international transfer. You normally don't have to go through immigration and customs for those, unless there are specific legal requirements or the airport is poorly organized.

Sure, but we went down the same hallway as everybody who was stopping in Ireland. There was just a sign at passport check with an arrow that said go on by. If I had wanted to stay in Ireland, I could’ve just walked out of the airport.

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

#284

Post by alistairSH »

input_sh wrote: post #203
bilekas wrote: post #187

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)

With the introduction of EES system (whose implementation was completed only a few months ago), the full data of non-EU citizens gets collected the first time we enter the EU and then we have to verify it every subsequent time. Not much of a hassle at airports due to the availability of self-service kiosks, somewhat of a hassle when crossing with a car, and infuriatingly annoying when using a mass transit option like…

We used the EES system in Italy, I think (cattle gates with passport scan and photo). The line was still pretty long and slow. Mostly because people couldn’t figure out how to get their passport scanned properly or they weren’t looking at the camera or any number of other things that there were signs explaining what to do and people just couldn’t be bothered doing it correctly

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

#285

Post by 8fingerlouie »

maratc wrote: post #64
thomasahle wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whereas in the US you only need to go through fingerprinting only once Once for each arrival.

Not my experience the last time I entered. I travelled with a friend for whom it was his first time visiting the US. He was fingerprinted, I wasn’t (I was fingerprinted a while ago on one of my previous trips.)

Same here, went in 2019, got fingerprinted, and went again in 2021 and 2025, and they didn't even care about my ESTA, they just waved me through.

The TSA agent asked me the usual questions about where I was staying, how long I was staying, I replied, and despite having printed just about everything out, he just waved me through.

The closest I got was a "random inspection" in an airport, and the TSA agents asked for our passports and to go through our luggage, but as soon as we flashed our Danish passports they lost all interest and just waved us through.

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

#286

Post by 8fingerlouie »

florakel wrote: post #182
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…

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.

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

#287

Post by extraduder_ire »

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

> Granted I was using my US passport, not my EU

Then you're American as far as they're concerned. Citizenship isn't something you can tell at a glance or determine by measuring a person.

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

#288

Post by 8fingerlouie »

Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #236
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…

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.

> In the US there have been notorious mistakes of using biometrics to falsely recognize an unknown criminal. Does this happen in the EU too?

This my major concern with biometrics and DNA databases. It makes the cops lazy. "Subjects fingerprints and DNA was found on the crime scene, so he's clearly the murderer". That flips the evidence around, suddenly "I" have to prove I'm innocent as opposed to the law proving I'm guilty.

If you can simply collect all DNA and fingerprints from a crime scene, look it up in a database and compile a list of suspects, it also eliminates the possibility that the real perpetrator didn't leave DNA or fingerprints.

Sure, DNA has its use, like "here's the murder weapon, and it has the suspects DNA and fingerprints on it". It's not a guarantee, but it's a closer match.

As for "does that happen in Europe as well", unfortunately yes. There have been cases where the police have found fingerprints and DNA and announced they had the suspect they were looking for, only for said person to be cleared weeks or months later.

As a general rule, DNA and fingerprints cannot be the sole evidence in EU courts. The law will need find more evidence before they can convict you. Also, no death penalty, and "lifetime" in the EU is usually around 10 years, so not a lot of people are found innocent after 30 years.

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

#289

Post by 8fingerlouie »

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.

Your DNA and fingerprints are literally everywhere you go, and they don't decay as soon as you leave. Hell, even passing close by a person can transfer your DNA to their clothes.

If the cops have a DNA Database, they "just" need to collect all DNA from a crime scene to compile a list of suspects, and by doing so, they're flipping the question of guilt around, you're no longer innocent until proven guilty, but guilty until proven innocent. You now have to prove you didn't "do it".

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

#290

Post by axus »

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.

In the US, we like to reduce state capacity. Helps limit the damage bad actors can do when they are in power.
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