Loss of Privacy

Biometric identifiers are supposed to make your passport more secure, however, the Dutch fear that the fingerprints in their passports aren’t really theirs. Fingerprints are required in all Dutch passports, but local offices aren’t checking them to see if they are correct.

Mr Van Raak says there is a significant chance that the fingerprints in your passport belong to someone else or that they will be not recognised by the system. The prints are not checked when they are issued at a town or city hall.

Speaking in a radio interview, the Socialist MP warned that innocent people are at risk of being misidentified as criminals or even terrorists. Apparently, six percent of fingerprints kept by the police are incorrect.

The fingerprints will be stored in a national database and no one is sure how they will correct the problem, should their prints match up with a criminal or terrorist. Even though only six percent are incorrect, that is still six percent too high as it is extremely easy to check and verify the fingerprints.

National ID cards will be issued before the end of the year in Tanzania.

The $176 million (about Sh200 billion) project has been delayed for decades now with documents, meetings and tendering moving from one office to the other. And now it has attracted the international community, including the World Bank.

Currently, five companies have been cleared for the final stage of the tender competition from which the authority will select one to start designing and making the ID cards.

Armenia is due to start issuing their ID cards sometime this year.

The current passports will not be valid in Armenia in 2011. They will be replaced by biometric passports and ID cards. Most probably, the social security cards will not be necessary, either.

The biometric passports and ID cards will contain more information about the citizens than the current documents. They will include a photo, the name, the surname, the middle name, the date of birth, the address, the prints of four fingers and the signature of the citizen.

The ID cards will be used inside Armenia, while the passports will be provided only when leaving the country, Head of the Passport and Visa Department of RA Police Norayr Muradkhanyan said. The new documents will be valid for ten years.

Starting this summer, anyone who wants to enter an internet cafe will be required to show their passport.

The decree requires all Internet providers in Belarus to store data on the Internet use of individuals for a full year and to hand that information over to law-enforcement agencies upon request.

It also requires Internet service providers to block access to any website within 24 hours of being asked to do so by government regulators — a provision that goes beyond antiterrorism security rules imposed under the most restrictive Internet laws in Western countries.

Activists said the “Decree on the Regularization of the Belarusian segment of the Internet” is simply being used to tighten control over the Internet in the country.

The president’s official website says the decree is “an attempt to protect the rights of Belarusian citizens, society, and the state in the field of information.”

While this appears to be targeted at Belarusians, particularly activists, it will probably be required of anyone entering internet cafes, including foreigners.

I’ve said before that the new “super-duper” biometric passports weren’t going to stop anything and I was right.  You can still get a legitimate US passport using fraudulent means.

Since 2007, the U.S. State Department has been issuing high-tech “e-passports,” which contain computer chips carrying biometric data to prevent forgery. Unfortunately, according to a March report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), getting one of these supersecure passports under false pretenses isn’t particularly difficult for anyone with even basic forgery skills.

A GAO investigator managed to obtain four genuine U.S. passports using fake names and fraudulent documents. In one case, he used the Social Security number of a man who had died in 1965. In another, he used the Social Security number of a fictitious 5-year-old child created for a previous investigation, along with an ID showing that he was 53 years old. The investigator then used one of the fake passports to buy a plane ticket, obtain a boarding pass, and make it through a security checkpoint at a major U.S. airport. (When presented with the results of the GAO investigation, the State Department agreed that there was a “major vulnerability” in the passport issuance process and agreed to study the matter.)

More than 70 countries have adopted the biometric passports, which officials describe as a revolution in immigration security. However, the GAO’s investigation proves that even the best technology can’t keep a country safe when the bureaucracy behind it fails.

There are always going to be holes in the system.  Creating new biometric passports will never solve anything.  It will only make it slightly harder to do what you did before and more of your personal information will be placed in a database somewhere for it to be leaked somewhere else.  Then, your biometric information will be copied and used for nefarious purposes as well.

Governments will install more checks and security points, but, they will still be just as insecure as the original paper ones.  Even if you start requiring DNA at birth, the database that DNA is held in will never be 100% secure and free from identity theft worries.

As an American, I have found it increasingly aggravating to fly, not only internationally, but nationally.  This is due mainly to the actions of the US border controls.  Now, questions are being raised as to whether these rigid guidelines are the cause to Chicago losing in their bid to host an Olympics.

Among the toughest questions posed to the Chicago bid team this week in Copenhagen was one that raised the issue of what kind of welcome foreigners would get from airport officials when they arrived in this country to attend the Games. Syed Shahid Ali, an I.O.C. member from Pakistan, in the question-and-answer session following Chicago’s official presentation, pointed out that entering the United States can be “a rather harrowing experience.”

President Obama, who was there as part of the 10-person team, assured Mr. Ali that all visitors would be made to feel welcome. “One of the legacies I want to see is a reminder that America at its best is open to the world,” he said.”

They would be made to feel welcome by having their photograph and fingerprints taken, put into a database and told to move along as it’s for their own good.  They would also have to submit detailed personal information which would be checked before they even fly.  One tiny screw up and, not only could a regular citizen, but an Olympian, could find out at the last minute, they are no longer welcome in the USA.  Good luck with that refund then.

To add insult to injury, the USA now wants to charge $10 for a visa waiver fee to people who want to visit.  First, these people live in countries that are considered our friends, thus there is no requirement to obtain a visa to come to the United States.  Second, how often do you charge friends to come to your house and hang out with you?  Third, why does the US think it’s a good idea to charge their friends a fee to visit somewhere they wanted to go to begin with?

International tourism to the United States continues to decline precisely because we keep making it more and more difficult for people to enter.  People who have very minor drug and alcohol convictions are being denied entry, even if their crime was decades ago.

US Passport Control is one of the most unwelcoming places in the world.  Everyone is treated as if they are a suspected bomber in a war zone.  The United States needs to get off its smug, high horse and get back to greeting people with friendly smiles and sensible rules.  Until then, expect more harrowing experiences and a further decline in tourism.