MOJ Website on fingerprinting/photos at Immigration from Nov 2007

[Takechanpoo]

The Chugoku Shimbun carries Other comments include:

"If they don't like it, don't come"
"America fingerprints everyone so why should Japan be criticized?"
"With foreign crime increasing, this seems only natural"
"If you've got nothing to hide, what's the worry?"

I got you are subscriber of [url=http://2server.sakura.ne.jp/newnews/pc/index.php?res=1551]Hariko no Tora!
You always comment in Japanese on this site?

[momotobananaoishii]

The Bilderbergers are not a family. At least get your conspiracy theories straight before you spew them out to the world.

yeah they are. A family/group of modern day nazi/NWO. Get your antifacts straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group

It is the name given to any individual attending their group meetings and thus by extension they are always referred to as Bilderbergers etc. It's not merely a conference title.

and guests are often seen as belonging to a secretive Bilderberg Group.

Donald Rumsfeld is an active Bilderberger.

People call all those guys part of the Bilderberger 'family'.

[Kuang_Grade]

Slashdot users notice this happening. Not as jokey as other slashdot threads.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/19/0436218

[Taro Toporific]

Slashdot users notice this happening. Not as jokey as other slashdot threads.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/19/0436218

Really?:p

Dog semen is the best solution. Not only does it make your fingerprints unreadable, but it also obscures any DNA traces you might be leaving. Make sure your fingers are always dripping with the stuff.

[james]

got this pm from my friend this morning: "[08:12] remember what i said about wanting to visit you in japan? i take that back. congrats, land of the rising paranoia, you're now the second country in which i shall refuse to set foot."

i can only hope this attitude spreads. good luck meeting your terror^H^H^H^H^Hourist quota, japan.

it has now made the news in canada:

cbc news article

one gaff in the article; they seem to refer to koizumi as being the current p.m.

it's hard to not want to leave. if i was having trouble deciding before, this certainly isn't inclining me to want to stay.

[canman]

The article was published in 2006, that is why they referred to Koizumi.
I don't know what to think about all of this. Oh the one hand, I don't like the fact that my picture and prints are stored and shared. That is worrisome to say the least. But anther part of me says shoganai. I was fingerprinted when I first came 14 years ago, and nothing untowards came of that. Maybe I'm just getting lazy or complacent, and will really begin to complain when I next try to enter Japan. But since I don't have any plans to leave in the near future, I will await those of you traveling to report what things are like.

[james]

The article was published in 2006, that is why they referred to Koizumi.

indeed.. i completely missed the date on that.. my mistake.

I will await those of you traveling to report what things are like.

i know a few people who will be making trips soon. it should be interesting to hear of their experiences. i don't expect to hear of anything too harrowing, it's more the general attitude behind this that sucks. the media has done a bang-up job of villainizing foreigners for sure.

[FG Lurker]

This was on the front page of Slashdot.org yesterday:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/19/0436218

The comments vary widely from the "No fucking way I'm going to Japan now" to the "Well, if you haven't done anything wrong, what are you worried about?"

Slashdot tends to have a readership of rather vocal people who have strong views on privacy. I hope the Slashdot readership continues to spread the word.

[Edit: Didn't notice that this was already linked to above... Sorry for the duplication.]

[yanpa]

Mr. Arudou is trying to collect people's experiences: http://www.debito.org/index.php/?page_id=745

[FG Lurker]

yeah they are. A family/group of modern day nazi/NWO. Get your antifacts straight.

Oh, my facts are very straight. I'm just not paranoid.

[Kuang_Grade]

Really?:p

Ah, good for you Taro...I saw that one at the beginning and forgot about it as I paged through the posts....Although I was waiting for someone to post how this was all somehow related to Microsoft's attempt to take over the world.

[Captain Japan]

Protesters 'flip the bird' at Justice Ministry over forced fingerprinting
Mainichi

Protestors inflated a 3-meter-high yellow hand with an extended forefinger and thrust it toward the Justice Ministry's offices in Tokyo on Tuesday to demonstrate against a controversial fingerprinting policy beginning at ports of entry across the country the same day.

About 80 protestors turned toward the ministry building and shouted in unison their opposition to the new policy, which requires all but a handful of foreigners to have their fingerprints and face photos taken to gain entry into Japan.

Representatives of human rights groups, labor unions, foreigners' groups and individuals spoke out against the system -- similar to the US-VISIT policy operating in the United States since 2004, but also targeting residents and not just tourists -- calling it, among other things, "racist," "xenophobic," "retrogressive" and "an invasion of human rights and privacy."...more...

[Mulboyne]

Protesters 'flip the bird' at Justice Ministry over forced fingerprinting
Mainichi

[Mulboyne]

The Justice Ministry began to take measures Tuesday to force five foreign nationals to leave Japan under a revised immigration law as their fingerprints were identical to those of five people who had been evicted, ministry officials said early Wednesday.

From here

[Kuang_Grade]

From here

Sounds a little convenient to me, given the probability of problems during the launch of the system...no better way to test the system than to run some known red flags through the system that had been salted away in legal limbo for a week or two just for this purpose, as well as the PR value of saying "See, it works!" 24 hours after starting the program...or those folks are simply not keeping up with the news because its not like the start date of the fingerprint program was some big surprise sprung on the world stage with no warning.

[amdg]

Indeed, it's not clear yet whether those fingered 5 were caught at the border as a result of the fingerprint scan. The report is vague on the details.

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri:

...A system glitch at Kansai Airport occurred at about 5:30 a.m. with the day's first planeload of passengers. One of the installed fingerprinting devices stopped responding soon after immigration procedures started for foreigners arriving on a Singapore Airlines flight from Bangkok. To try to avoid delays, foreigners waiting in line for the booth with the technical problem were guided to other booths, and the fingerprinting device was successfully put back in operation soon afterward. There were no reports of major confusion over the system or of foreigners refusing to be fingerprinted.

At Tokachi Obihiro Airport in Hokkaido, a fingerprinting device displayed an error message for about 10 minutes from 10:45 a.m. when dealing with tourists from Taipei. At Fushiki Port in Toyama Prefecture, a fingerprinting device malfunctioned at about 8:30 a.m. during immigration procedures aboard a cargo ship.

At Narita Airport, a Qantas Airways flight from Sydney with 212 passengers arrived at 6:10 a.m. About 210 immigration officers--about 70 more than usual--dealt with the passengers to avoid problems. The passengers pressed their index fingers on the glass scanning panels, had their photos taken, answered questions from immigration officers and headed to the arrival lobby. When a number of flights arrived from Southeast Asia at about 8 a.m., the process was clearly taking longer than usual.

[Mulboyne]

There's no chance that any government lose sensitive personal data. Oh, wait a minute...

Telegraph: Data on 25m benefits claimants lost in post

Every parent in the country has been put at risk of fraud and identity theft after the Government lost 25 million personal records in Britain’s worst ever data protection breach...Two compact discs containing bank details and addresses of 9.5 million parents and the names, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers of all 15.5 million children in the country went missing after a junior employee of HM Revenue and Customs put them in the post, unrecorded and unregistered...

[Catoneinutica]

A Slashdot commenter noted that since Japan apparently has a reciprocal fingerprint-sharing agreement with the US, both countries are getting a huge pool of fingerprints of their own non-lawbreaking citizens - all without lifting a legal finger, as it were. Spooky.

[kusai Jijii]

Check this complete and utter crock of shit out.
Talk about a PR campaign...
http://www.theage.com.au/news/news/japan-detains-five-after-fingerprinting/2007/11/21/1195321853159.html

[amdg]

Well now it seems that people who refuse to give fingerprints will not just simply be turned around and deported as was earlier thought. Instead, by official government directive, immigration officers have now been authorized to lock up refusers and persuade them to give their prints, using force if necessary. They are also empowered to conduct body searches on those who refuse.

Sieg Heil!



New here:
link http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=777

[Kuang_Grade]

A Slashdot commenter noted that since Japan apparently has a reciprocal fingerprint-sharing agreement with the US, both countries are getting a huge pool of fingerprints of their own non-lawbreaking citizens - all without lifting a legal finger, as it were. Spooky.

This is actually the thing that bothers me the most. I don't have any particular concerns about what the J gov would do with with the fingerprint data but I have huge concerns about what my own government will do with it.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E1D8153EF935A15756C0A9629C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/M/Mayfield,%20Brandon

[yanpa]

This is actually the thing that bothers me the most. I don't have any particular concerns about what the J gov would do with with the fingerprint data but I have huge concerns about what my own government will do with it.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E1D8153EF935A15756C0A9629C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/M/Mayfield,%20Brandon

Screw this, I might as well send the US government (not my government, but it seems any attempt to board a plane leaving Europe will put my name on one of their lists) my fingerprints myself. And my cheekprints. And might as well stick a big sample of DNA in while I'm at it.

[FG Lurker]

This is actually the thing that bothers me the most. I don't have any particular concerns about what the J gov would do with with the fingerprint data but I have huge concerns about what my own government will do with it.

I think you are missing a point in your logic. How and why do you think the US government is going to get your prints? Perhaps because of something the Japanese government has done...? (Like take them in the first place and then happily hand them over to the US.)

[Greji]

I have huge concerns about what my own government will do with it.

Well, if you just do something about all of those outstanding arrest warrants, you would have to be so concerned!

[Taro Toporific]

Check this complete and utter crock of shit ...

[Mulboyne]

[Kuang_Grade]

I think you are missing a point in your logic. How and why do you think the US government is going to get your prints? Perhaps because of something the Japanese government has done...? (Like take them in the first place and then happily hand them over to the US.)

I'm not concerned what the J government would do with the data FOR THEMSELVES and their own internal purposes. Recording the data when I arrive and then verifying that the same person is seeking to leave the country doesn't bother me nor does verifying the passport number with the data collected in the past for repeat visitors to make sure they match. But the use of the data should end at the J national borders. I just don't care for the US security infrastructure getting my data for 'free' without any justification and also in a way that I have no specific knowledge about or control over. Not that I have a specific worry about something coming up out of my past, but, then again, who knows how badly they will manage this and whose data my name could be mixed up with. Given how poorly the J government safeguards the data of J citizens, I can only imagine the complete lack of concern they will show towards the data of foreigners.

[Catoneinutica]

I'm not concerned what the J government would do with the data FOR THEMSELVES and their own internal purposes. Recording the data when I arrive and then verifying that the same person is seeking to leave the country doesn't bother me nor does verifying the passport number with the data collected in the past for repeat visitors to make sure they match. But the use of the data should end at the J national borders. I just don't care for the US security infrastructure getting my data for 'free' without any justification and also in a way that I have no specific knowledge about or control over. Not that I have a specific worry about something coming up out of my past, but, then again, who knows how badly they will manage this and whose data my name could be mixed up with. Given how poorly the J government safeguards the data of J citizens, I can only imagine the complete lack of concern they will show towards the data of foreigners.

Absolutely. Having the entire US Homeland Security/IRS/Private Contractor/Innumerable Interested Parties Apparat gain access to your fingerprints at the drop of a memo to Japan (presumably) is not something that should worry only Americans with outstanding warrants. You might as well be wearing an a electronic monitoring bracelet.

[Taka-Okami]

I went through the fingerprinting on the 21st at Nagoya. It was very speedy, mainly due to the fact that there were only a handful of gaijin on the flight. They did the prints first, then the photo. I did try to puff out my cheeks a bit to try and confuse things a bit. The actual process didnt bother me as much I thought it would.

What was worrying however, is that they had security guards posted at EVERY immigration checkin counter. What made me uncomfortable was that each guard stood right behind you, and it felt like they were expecting me to make a move or something. Thats about it.