Americans traveling to Europe will have fingerprints scanned under new rule | Hacker News Reader

Americans traveling to Europe will have fingerprints scanned under new rule

livenowfox.com

32 pointsfrozencooler33 comments

My husband, a German, has been putting his fingers on the scanners when coming in to visit my family for nearly two decades - turnabout is fair play, I suppose...

That's the idea with a lot of immigration policy. Strange this one wasn't already reciprocal. Whoever originally designed it felt that Europe needed American visitors more than vice versa, but now, that's not the case.

> Strange this one wasn't already reciprocal.

I don't think "back at ya" is the goal here. There are many practical and good reasons to have fingerprints of people entering/trying to enter your country. Most are the same reasons that you have to give fingerprints in domestic situations.

Or that Europe should treat foreigners nicely.

What is “not nice” about having to provide your fingerprints? Genuinely asking.

Privacy? Being treated like a criminal?

It's unfortunate that the whole world is becoming more and more closed off. It feels like eventually we are all going to be locked into the country of our birth, with no hope of traveling somewhere else for a better life.

How is this “more closed off” non Americans traveling to us have gotten their fingerprints scanned for more than a decade?

It's all part of the same trend.

Chattel Slavery

Badly written article or headline.

This new rule applies to ALL travelers coming into the Schengen area, not just Americans.

Expected quality from Fox

I won't say the governmental fingerprint DB is great for liberty, but in the grand scheme of things, it's largely inconsequential.

Case in point: South Korea. It has the total fingerprint DB of every adult citizen. Has been so for decades. Doesn't really affect people's freedom except in the abstract sense of "I don't like it when the government knows too much about me" way. Didn't even stop citizens from organizing mass protests when our president was stupid enough to declare martial law last year.

There are usual suspects that pose much bigger threats to democracy: things like income inequality, failing education, social network doing its things, media colluding with mega corporations, the usual stuff. Fingerprints may make a nice Hollywood SF thriller but that's about it.

It's inconsequential until it isn't. All of the other threats you mention are still threats, but if a government has a database of every resident's fingerprints and decided to use this to arrest every person who could be traced to a protest venue, a reasonable person would very quickly change their mind.

The way I see it, a government not having my fingerprints creates one more barrier to possible tyrannical actions like this and is thus a good thing.

Yes, we know the U.S. has done this since 2004 (and so have several other countries, especially in Asia). There's nowhere that I know of that has an organized lobby for foreigners' rights. If there were, I would join it.

(I mean, Ed Hasbrouck has been campaigning against travel surveillance and heightened use of ID for many years, so we have, like, one person!)

One problem is that when governments get together to talk about data and travel, they mostly end up negotiating ways to collect and exchange more data about travelers!

Ugh. I guess this is part of the normalization of surveillance in the Europe with chat control and everything else.

I paid, booked a flight etc for having a 360 scan and giving my fingerprint just to be able to apply for a US visitor visa (which could be rejected but they would still keep all your information)

And European visas work exactly the same way. The news here is that Americans are going to lose their privileged status, and be treated like the rest of us.

Perhaps you didn’t realize that the United States has required most Europeans to scan their fingerprints for several decades upon entry.

It's a clear-cut troll account. They won't acknowledge anything that refutes their inflammatory flamebait.

Everybody entering you mean.

With some exceptions, including not only the obvious one of US citizens but also most Canadian visitors too.

Foreign visitors to the US have had to be fingerprinted for years, so you could guess it's part of the normalization of surveillance around the world.

Every single comment: What do you mean, it's totally normal to require fingerprint scanning for travel purposes!

From high risk countries, full of extremists and other dangerous people like the US? Seems pretty reasonable.

People will let others take from them, piece by piece, until everything is gone. Even if you have nothing to hide, do we not have a right to privacy? We should be asking why they need it.

It's been normal for Europeans entering the US for a few years now. It was about time for it to become reciprocal.

I wish (and have wished since US-VISIT started) that Europeans would instead have persuaded the U.S. to stop doing it, instead of copying the U.S. or reciprocating.

Having fingerprints on our ID cards has existed for decades.

We have biometric passports in the EU for quite some time so I'm a bit surprised it took so long to take the same data for visitors too.

Its basically access logs and authentication for living people to a country. Its not a matter of if this will happen, It is a matter of when and how well it is executed.

I had my fingerprints taken entering the US pre-9/11 as a kid on a holiday with family. Wasn't any scanners back then. Good way to make visitors feel like criminals.

When you will arrive to USA via ESTA, then you have fingers scanned as well while you are talking to immigration officer.

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