EU Plans to Require Biometrics for Visitors

bushwhacker2000 writes to tell us that the EU may soon be requiring travelers to provide biometric data before crossing into Europe. They are trying to soften the blow by offering "streamlined" services for frequent travelers but the end result seems the same. "The proposals, contained in draft documents examined by the International Herald Tribune and scheduled to go to the European Commission on Wednesday, were designed to bring the EU visa regime into line with a new era in which passports include biometric data. The commission, the EU executive, argues that migratory pressure, organized crime and terrorism are obvious challenges to the Union and that the bloc's border and visa policy needs to be brought up to date."

Lessons of history

[stimpleton]

When the Nazi's were setting the ground work for their "final solution", they gathered census data starting in the early 30's.

The Hollerinth Tabulator machines streamlined the amounts of data that could be processed, thus they could ask more questions.

Some with insight, forsaw this increase is information gathering, and altered their answers to reflect a non-jewish ancestry.

However, they only needed 1 parent or grandparent to give the "correct" answer to link them to a Jewish ancestry(1/16th I believe).

Similarly today, there is little we can do. We are, as we would say in New Zealand, buggered.

Re:European Eunion?

[LazySlacker]

Because Switzerland isn't part of Schengen?

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany
Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy
Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal
Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

Re:European Eunion?

[einar2]

Every bank always used to identify their customers; for obvious reasons. Ten years ago, there was a global trend towards stronger identification of your customers. In banks we call this KYC (know your client). Basically, this goes beyond identifying your client. It includes checking the plausibility of your banking business. For example, if you are a student but you shuffle around huge amounts of money then the bank will like to know where the money comes from. You could be just a straw man for whoever.

A lot of the rumors about Swiss banks come from silly movies. It is not true that you can enter a Swiss bank with a bag of money and open a secret account based on a code number. The so called "numbered accounts" are nothing more than ordinary bank accounts which are internally identified by a number. Only very few employees have access to the information who is the owner of the account. However, the bank does know who owns the account. There are good reasons for such accounts. Assume you work yourself for the bank and you want to prevent your team colleagues from checking your account.
Additionally, the Swiss tax law is different from most other countries. Switzerland distinguishes between tax fraud and "tax withholding". Not declaring all your income to the tax authorities is not necessarily a crime in Switzerland. And if it is no crime here, a foreign country cannot ask for legal support during investigations.
Now you can claim that the Swiss banks together with the Swiss tax regulation help criminals to cheat their own tax authorities. However, you can also claim that the Swiss banks together with the Swiss tax regulation protect people around the world from being robbed by their local dictators. It depends on the viewpoint.
Personally, I like the idea that there is one place in the world where you can safely place your assets and they are protected, --- even against your own government if necessary.


I work in the IT of private banking.