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Comment by thomasahle | Hacker News Reader

> 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.)

I have gotten fingerprinted every time i arrive, before i got a green card and after i got a green card. Not sure if its related to something else, country of origin or country im traveling from etc.

Ok, it could depend on the type of visa too. I only enter for tourism (B2 I think) and have never overstayed.

Never overstaying, always fingerprinted on arrival.

Your profile probably flagged some checks so they needed to get your fingerprints to actually confirm you are the one on the visa. I've never had to give fingerprints except for my first US visa.

UK, so on VISA Waiver programme not VISA.

Fingerprinted once 12 years ago, never again. Traveled on ESTA.

The point of taking biometics is they can check if the same person is travelling on the same passport each subsequent visit.

Sometimes they rely on just image matching, and sometimes they ask for an additional finger scan ( but not normally all fingers of all hands like first registration ).

So perhaps if you have a generic looking face, or have changed your appearance since the first visit you are more likely to be fingerprinted.

What is the point of them taking the fingerprints at all, if they don't verify them on entry?

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.

No. I haven't had to do it in at least two years and I travel here frequently on an EU passport.

not for US citizens at least, whereas I get fingerprinted entering and exiting as an EU citizen in the EU.

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).

Thats why. You don't have to go thru this extra check if you use EU passport or if you have temporary/permanent residency (but not travel visa) attached to your passport.

> 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.

the person i'm replying to said they didn't have that experience as a non-EU citizen, whereas i did

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