Japan starts fingerprinting foreigners.
Posted on | November 21, 2007 | 2 Comments
As I wrote in a Previous article Japan was scheduled to start fingerprinting all foreigners that enter Japan include those with permenant residence and excluding those that fit into special categories such as 3rd generation Korean born or people on diplomatic visa and they did just so.
My issue with the system is not that they take the fingerprints on entering the country but that they keep them on file for as long as 70 years. I think it would be a reasonable to check that all incoming foreigners are not on any terrorist watch lists and then destroy the fingerprints. That seems like a reasonable precaution to me. However the fact that the next time I come into the country I will have to submit my fingerprints into an online database that will be used in criminal investigations throughout Japan seems like a gross violation of my privacy.
Its not like they are doing it for everybody, there were plans for a system where Japanese people would have to submit fingerprints as well but human rights activists protested heavily.
For those who want to protest the new system it is quite difficult because if one doesn’t submit their fingerprints and photograph, they are simply denied entry into the country. Therefore the following are recommended ways of showing your dissatisfaction with the way that foreigners entering Japan are being treated.
- (Especially for people already living here) write to your embassy and the Japanese embassy back home
- Write to the JNTO and tell them that the abusive procedures will hurt tourism numbers
- As you are having your picture taken, hand over a written, signed letter in protest. There is no point in making a huge scene at the airport especially as the person doing the photographing and fingerprinting is only taking orders.
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2 Responses to “Japan starts fingerprinting foreigners.”
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November 22nd, 2007 @ 8:00 am
????… [translation: Era of Isolation]
December 14th, 2007 @ 8:17 pm
I'm a Permanent Resident of Japan, from the UK and have lived here since 1994. Japan has never been attacked by foreign terrorists and if such attack is likely it will happen overseas. Japan has been attacked by home grown terrorists. The introduction of fingerprinting is against the Japanese Constitution which affords protection to all peoples who are in Japan and not just Japanese nationals.