[Article] US plans to retain visitors' fingerprints for 75 years

Victor

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US plans to retain visitors' fingerprints for 75 years
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 8th January, 2004

Fingerprints taken from Irish citizens on entry to the US will be retained indefinitely by the US authorities, even after the visa-holder has left the country. The requirement is part of US-VISIT, a new US security programme, writes Christine Newman.

A US-VISIT source in Washington told The Irish Times yesterday that fingerprints would be retained for 75 years.

"Under current regulations, data retention for fingerprints is 75 years and that is the same for immigration data," he said.

There were agreements and safeguards to protect privacy and to ensure the data was used only for immigration and other law enforcement purposes.

Data would be used only in specific instances, such as where a person was arrested. The data-retention policies were being reviewed and there could be changes, he added.

However, yesterday a spokesman in the Data Protection Commissioner's office in Dublin said: "If the fingerprints are for the purpose of confirming entry to the US and then again on departure, and that is the only reason, then they should be deleted."

If fingerprints were to be used in the long term, then the public should have the right to know so that they could choose whether they wanted to go to the US, the Dublin spokesman said. It was a matter for the US authorities but they should publicise the fact that fingerprints would be retained.

He said that if there were concerns about the scheme, then they could be brought up at a meeting of the EU body of data-protection commissioners rather than by an individual country. He added that the EU body, which meets about four times a year, would have no jurisdiction over what happened within the US.

The spokesman said that if the scheme was extended to non-visa-holding Irish immigrants, then the EU body would be likely to look into it.

He said a scheme for fingerprinting non-nationals entering EU states was already in operation and that there was a databank. Also in the future, it was likely that all passports would be required to have bio-metric chips.

The US-VISIT scheme in Ireland affects travellers on non-immigrant visas. Those who must be fingerprinted include people travelling to the US on temporary working visas or to study.

On the first day of the scheme, on January 4th, only 25 people of the 1,000 travelling from Shannon needed to have their fingerprints digitally scanned.

Victor

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We're set to pass US security test
From:The Irish Independent
Thursday, 8th January, 2004

FORTRESS America is tightening its security measures again - by introducing new hi-tech passports.

But Ireland is geared up to meet the October deadline for 'biometric' passports.

A €27m plant has been built by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Balbriggan, Co Dublin in order to meet the latest US requirements.

The new passports must contain 'biometric indicators' which are computer chips carrying a digitally encoded record of the bearer's face, and possibly fingerprints.

Visa-waiver countries have until October 26 to start issuing the passports - and almost none of the 27 nations expect to be ready.

But the department's plant in Balbriggan will be open by autumn.

The cost of the new passports will be met by the recent increase in fees - from €57 to €75 - announced in the Budget.

Officials here played down fears, voiced in the UK, that travellers would need visas to visit America for even the shortest trip if biometric passports were not available.

British travellers will face the time-consuming problem of applying in person for a visa to visit America for even the shortest family holiday, officials feared yesterday.

They said they would not be in a position to produce the 'biometric' passports until at least the middle of next year, by which time millions of people will have to go to US missions if they wish to visit America.

The ruling will affect all Britons with passports issued after October 26 until the biometric passports are introduced. Some 450,000 British passports are issued each month. Passports issued before October 26 will still entitle entry to the US without a visa.

Jack Straw, Britain's Foreign Secretary, and David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, have lobbied Washington hard to postpone the deadline - noting that America's own passport bureau does not expect to produce biometric passports until well into 2005.

British diplomats in Washington said the US decision created an "impossible situation" and vowed to press hard for a postponement.

Nicola Anderson

Victor

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Pilots remain opposed to firearms on aircraft
From:ireland.com
Friday, 9th January, 2004

Irish pilots have said they remain opposed in principle to the deployment of firearms aboard aircraft following the insistence of the United States that all flights from some countries must have armed air marshals on board.

The Irish Air Line Pilots' Association (IALPA) said in a statement that its policy in relation to aviation security was that, where possible, all security threats are eliminated on the ground.

"The potential introduction of 'sky marshals' onto Irish-registered aircraft must in no way divert the
responsibility of Government from ensuring that such security threats are eliminated prior to the aircraft's departure.

"Since the advent of civil aviation almost a century ago, the international aviation community has invested huge effort and resources into keeping guns off aircraft, for safety and security reasons that remain valid today. In this context, we will seek to ensure that any change in this area will only be made after a comprehensive consultation process," the pilots' union said.

It said the high standards of safety in the aviation industry have been the result of years of collaboration and a very real shared ownership of responsibility for safety by all involved.

"We believe that for security to be fully effective, any changes of such fundamental significance must be the result of collaboration, and that every body with responsibility for security must consider the function and role of other parties in the process. The regime which underpins involvement and consultation in flight safety should also be the prevailing regime in flight security."

IALPA said it was committed to ensuring that Irish travellers continue to enjoy "the highest standards of both flight safety and security".

British-based pilots, meanwhile, today welcomed an Irish Government initiative that they hope will lead to a consensus among European countries on the controversial use of armed sky marshals on planes.

The Government, which took over the Presidency of the European Union on January 1st for a six-month period, has convened a meeting of transport officials in Brussels next week to seek views from member states about the use of armed guards.

The British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA) welcomed the move and made it clear it too remained unhappy about the use of sky marshals to counter the threat of hijackings. BALPA general secretary Mr Jim McAuslan said: "There is clearly a difference in culture between the USA and Europe, and a difference of view about sky marshals.

"The Americans see sky marshals as the way forward, but many of us in Europe see them as an irrelevance. Four European nations are refusing to fly with sky marshals, as are many airlines."

BALPA said it did not want guns on aircraft and was advising pilots only to cooperate if the union had an agreement with their airline. "We welcome the Irish Government's initiative in seeking a European consensus which might be quite different from that expressed on the other side of the Atlantic," Mr McAuslan said.

Victor

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Brazilians grin as Americans get fingerprinted
From:Reuters
Friday, 9th January, 2004
By Amy Taxin

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - After enduring cumbersome security checks and screening at the hands of U.S. immigration officials, many Brazilians can't help but grin now that U.S. travellers are bearing the same fate.

In response to Washington's decision to start fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors who carry visas this week, Latin America's largest nation has begun exacting the same measures from U.S. citizens in the name of reciprocity.

And while Brazil's tourism industry fears the measure might discourage would-be visitors, many Brazilians admit they rather enjoy seeing Americans subjected to the stressful kind of review all too familiar to them in U.S. consulates and airports.

"If I think rationally, I think it's no use for Brazil to get fingerprints from Americans because we lose important tourism income with that," said Leonardo Mecchi on Friday, a 27-year-old sales manager in Sao Paulo. "But as a Brazilian, I can't help feel a little bit revenged by this emotionally."

Mecchi isn't alone. An outpouring of letters to local newspaper editors have lauded the measures to pressure Washington to exclude Brazil from the controls, along with 27 nations whose citizens -- in contrast -- don't need a visa.

The measure, which was ordered by a federal judge, has sparked debate among Brazilians who are savouring what they see as fair immigration policy and those who believe making tourists wait to be fingerprinted is a useless "tit for tat."

"I think it's perfect and fair. It's not a revenge, it's a protest against the U.S. government's discriminatory decision," Ronaldo Ferraz wrote in a letter to O Globo newspaper this week.

POPULAR MOVE

Brazil's centre-left government does not want to ruin a good relationship with the United States over an issue on which Washington isn't likely to budge.

But nor does President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva seem eager to back down on controls that have proved popular. Brazilians have long needed a visa to visit the United States, but they had to jump through even more hoops after the September 11 attacks.

"There is a certain feeling of satisfaction, let's say, that the American tourists are being submitted to the same rigor as Brazilian tourists," said David Fleischer, a political analyst with the University of Brasilia.

Although Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Donna Hrinak, that he would work to speed up the process at airports, the ministry says it has yet to decide whether it will appeal the court order.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's top travel destination, has already appealed the order, fearing it could lose vital tourism dollars from thousands of U.S. travellers who visit each year.

One of the problems is that, while fingerprinting is digital in the United States, the last-minute order in Brazil has meant long lines and messy ink-pad prints for many tourists.

Some U.S. tourists missed connecting flights after they were kept waiting up to eight hours in Rio de Janeiro's airport on Monday.

"I would like to see real diplomatic activity to try to stop these measures in the U.S. but obligating people to stand in line for five hours or nine hours? I don't think it's a very effective way," said Douglas Malentaqui in Rio de Janeiro.

Victor

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Desmond firm a winner in €2.5m US airports deal
04/07/04 00:00
By Gavin Daly

Daon, the biometrics firm owned by Dublin financier Dermot Desmond, is part of a consortium that has won a $2.5 million contract to test a passenger screening system at US airports.

Under the 90-day pilot programme, Daon's technology will be used to scan the irises and fingerprints of frequent flyers passing through the Minneapolis St Paul, Los Angeles International and George Bush International airports, three of the top 15 airports in the world in terms of passenger traffic.

A spokesman for Daon said more than 1,000 frequent flyers signed up for the system within 48 hours of its launch at Minneapolis airport last week.

The programme will begin in Los Angeles later this month and extend to Houston next month.

The US Transportation Security Administration awarded the contract to a consortium led by the multinational, Unisys. Daon is part of the consortium.

The Irish firm's technology identifies individuals by their biometric features, such as their irises, fingerprints or voice.

The company was set up in late 2000 and has been funded by Desmond, who also sits on the board.

It has installed fingerprint scanning technology at IBM's disaster recovery centre in Dublin and at London City Airport, which is owned by Desmond.

Daon was also part of a consortium that recently failed to win a contract worth up to $10 billion to create a `virtual border' around the US.

However, the awarding of the contract to consulting firm Accenture is under review, because Accenture is not based in the US.

Daon recently appointed Tom Grissen, a US businessman, as chief executive. The company employs about 40 people at its headquarters in Washington and offices in Dublin and London.