http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20060822zg.html



is a Japan Times article of Ken Joseph.

He nicely summarizes the issue and reports on some new developments.

In June this year I have taken the time to summarize my view on the topic.

Here it is for the public.







Arguments against fingerprinting foreigners at immigration in Japan.



by Olaf Karthaus

(821 words in text body)



There have been very few terrorist attacks in this country and it is in my interest, as a long-time resident and father that it stays like this. So I welcome steps that make this safe country even safer. But I oppose the government’s move to fingerprint and photograph every foreigner at immigration, except for ‘special permanent residence’ holders. Why? Because collecting biometric data from foreigners will not make Japan safer.

The following questions literally jump into the readers face:



1. Who committed terrorist acts on Japanese soil, or clearly targeted Japanese?

Most if not all past attacks were committed by Japanese citizens not by foreigners. For example the Jodo airplane hijacking in the 1970ies to North Korea and the Aum gas attacks.



2. Why exempt special permanent residents?

A Korean or Chinese national born in Japan is not a terror suspect, but a decade-long Swiss or Swedish permanent resident is?



3. Could the 9/11 terrorists or the London subway bombers have been stopped by fingerprinting them?

Most of the 9/11 terrorists were legally in the USA. Not a single one of them was stopped at immigration or could have been stopped by checking their fingerprints. The London terrorists were British citizens. Suicide bombers are mainly young people. They have no criminal records, so searching in their biometric data will raise no red flags.



4. Can all people be correctly identified by fingerprints? Approximately 1% of the population has fingerprints that do not record well. Furthermore, according to the FBI, computer based screening identifies only 99.97% fingerprints correctly. That sounds like a pretty high rate of accuracy, but with 7 million foreigners annually entering Japan being checked against tens of millions known criminals around the world, we can estimate that more than 2000 foreigners will not be identified correctly. This means that there might be ‘false-negative’ cases (a known terrorist slips through), as well as false-positive IDs (an innocent person is taken for a terrorist). Since ONE false-negative ID might lead to the loss of many lives, the threshold for false-positives will be set quite low. How many of the Galton points, these are points of identification in a fingerprint, will be used for identification? Only 5? Only 10? Or 16, as some countries require for criminal trials? What if the database has only a bad-quality version of a suspects print with only 5 Galton points?



5. What will happen to those innocent people identified as terrorists? Will they be sent back to their country of origin? Or sent to a country that might have a warrant on their heads? One where they will get legal representation, or one that violates human rights? Will they be given a second chance for a human expert to check their biometrics before that happens? If so, how long will that take? An hour? A day? A week?



6. What is the Japanese government doing with the data? Every country has the right to know who enters. If the purpose is solely to prevent criminals and terrorists entering, the data should be erased on the spot after the person is checked. The government plans to keep the data for an undefined time, but at least for the expected lifetime of the person. That means a whooping 70 years!



7. How can the government make sure that this biometric data will not be used for other purposes?

Will these photographs be used for tracking people in Japan? The first trial phase of an automated facial recognition program has already started at Kasumigaseki subway station. Since May the faces of people passing through are checked against a database. Will the Tokyo government have access to these databases, because Governor Ishihara promised to ‘round-up foreigners in case of a major natural disaster’?



8. How about data leaks?

Barely a single week passes without reports of the leakage of confidential information (names, dates of birth, addresses, criminal records) from military, police and government databases onto the internet. As a last resort, the government may have to provide affected individuals with new identities. But up to now there is no surgical technique to permanently alter a fingerprint. Once the leaked fingerprints are ‘out’ there is no way to erase them.



9. Is it possible to fake fingerprints?

There are internet recipes that produce molds from digital fingerprints. These molds can be used to fool fingerprint scanners. How long will it take until somebody is skilful enough to produce a nearly invisible fake silicon mold, slip it over his finger and ditto through immigration?



Indeed, new types of crime may require new types of counter measures. But also, new technologies to collect, distribute, and analyze biometric data have to be implemented cautiously. Terrorist threats should not be used as an excuse to unreasonably heighten control over any aspect of a countries population.

The dangers of human rights violations far out-weigh the slight chances of catching a terrorist at immigration.