Korea To Fingerprint & Photograph Foreign Visitors

[IkemenTommy]

The more appropriate thread title would be "Korea to Fingerfuck & Photograph Foreign Visitors"

[Ganma]

Another country trying to win a popularity contest with tourists. ...and Korea is an even less attractive tourist destination than Japan - concrete and pollution anyone?

Foreigners to be fingerprinted upon entry of Korea from August.

So writes the Chosun Ilbo today:

All foreigners over 17 will be fingerprinted and photographed when they enter Korea starting in August. A revision to the immigration control law was passed by the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee on Monday.

Once the bill passes a plenary session, it will be possible to stop foreigners, who have been deported for crimes in the country, from reentering on a different passport.


Korean-language version here. I was looking around for an offensive cartoon of foreign criminals to pair with this post---Dong-A Ilbo, you taking the day off?---but am a little disappointed to not find one.

This issue has been discussed for years. I've written about it twice before

* December 28, 2008: "Korean government wants to fingerprint foreign tourists and residents by 2010."
* September 22, 2009: "Bill for fingerprinting foreign tourists by 2012 to be introduced next month."


and said that I don't see a problem with asking for fingerprints of tourists upon entry. It was introduced to Japan a couple years ago, and was met with some heavy opposition by readers of Japan Probe and Japan Guide. You'd need to read through some of the articles from 2006 and 2007, which pop up in a Google search, to get a sense of the climate in Japan a few years ago, as a lot of the outrage came because residents and visa-holders were also to have their fingerprints taken at each entry. It's not clear if that would happen in South Korea. The 2008 Korea Times article says

The Ministry of Justice said Saturday that it will propose to revise the Immigration Law so that all foreign nationals, either for short-term stay or long-term, are obliged to provide their biometric information to the Korean authorities when they come to the country.


but it doesn't say whether data of "long-term" foreign nationals would be taken upon first entry or each entry. more...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Originally Posted by Ganma

Korea is an even less attractive tourist destination than Japan - concrete and pollution anyone?

Pretty much everyone I've met who's traveled in both countries (and I'm not including people who lived in either) liked Korea a lot better.

[Ganma]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Jerk

Pretty much everyone I've met who's traveled in both countries (and I'm not including people who lived in either) liked Korea a lot better.

This hasn't been my experience and I've been there and known people who lived there. That being said I didn't have a bad experience there myself, I liked the food, but I didn't think it was a better place in any way.
What did they say they liked more about Korea?

[Samurai_Jerk]

Originally Posted by Ganma

This hasn't been my experience and I've been there and known people who lived there. That being said I didn't have a bad experience there myself, I liked the food, but I didn't think it was a better place in any way.
What did they say they liked more about Korea?

As I mentioned, I'm not including people who've lived in either. Just people who've been to both as tourists. People who've lived in Korea tend to say it's a shithole. That seems to be changing recently though.

I go once a year and love it but I definitely prefer Japan as a place to live.

Anyway, I haven't gone into detail about what they liked better, they've just found it more fun and more exciting.

[rooboy]

Well I s'pose all the people here who don't mind what Japan and Korea do to foreigners who are actually residents in the country and not tourists,will think it's fine then if our countries reciprocate.

That is - start taking the fingerprints and biometric data of Japanese and Koreans. After all, I haven't heard of any Aussie gangs setting up shop in Japan and Korea unlike the Yakuza coming to do it in Queensland and Korean gangs setting up prostitution and human trafficking networks in Sydney.

And as the Japanese exported terrorism into Europe via the J Red Army and murdered people at an airport counter, then that's enough to start doing it to Japanese. If they're gonna stigmatise us then let's make em undergo the same based on their citizens' track records of organised crime activity and terrorism in Australia, the US, Canada and Europe.