British Airport Will Require Fingerprints From Domestic Passengers 279
ProfBooty brings us a story about England's Heathrow airport, which will begin fingerprinting passengers on its domestic flights later this month. Airport executives claim that the data will be stored for no longer than 24 hours, and will not be shared with law enforcement. We've previously discussed airport fingerprinting measures in the United States and Japan. Quoting:
"All four million domestic passengers who will pass through Terminal 5 annually after it opens on March 27 will have four fingerprints taken, as well as being photographed, when they check in. To ensure the passenger boarding the aircraft is the same person, the fingerprinting process will be repeated just before they board the aircraft and the photograph will be compared with their face. Dr Gus Hosein, of the London School of Economics, an expert on the impact on technology on civil liberties, is one of the scheme's strongest critics. He said: 'There is no other country in the world that requires passengers travelling on internal flights to be fingerprinted. BAA says the fingerprint data will be destroyed, but the records of who has travelled within the country will not be, and it will provide a rich source of data for the police and intelligence agencies.'"
"Sound bite Security" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:defective by design indeed ... (Score:2, Informative)
But then again, maybe it's cheaper to have those systems now. Even one of the local grocery store chains has a check cashing method where you just have to scan your fingerprint.
Re:So what's the point? (Score:0, Informative)
The idea is just to provide a more solid means of checking if the passport a person entered the country with is the same passport they are leaving with.
Otherwise you will have to have flight attendants at the gate try to determine if a 5-10yrold picture (passports are valid for several years) is just an old photo or if the person switched their passport/flight with someone else.
Re:I see your fear and raise you Brazil ! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:defective by design indeed ... (Score:-1, Informative)
Re:Riiiiiight... (Score:3, Informative)
Only the KGB uses tape backup: real spies just upload their important stuff.
Re:So what's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
You're welcome.
Re:So what's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
It's *not* for preventing terrorism.
Terminal 5 mixes international passengers and domestic passengers into one area. This system hypothetically prevents people who just got off of an international flight from getting on to a domestic flight and not going through immigration.
I have heard there's a terminal at Gatwick that does the same thing, but they only check passports manually, no biometric check is used.
You might ask the question--why the hell do they insist on mixing international and domestic passengers? Though I don't know why conclusively, I suspect the main reason is that the BAA (the authority that runs the London Airports) is trying to maximize sales at the retail shops in Terminal 5 (because that's what the BAA is notorious for.) If passengers are separated, shops would lose out on the passengers that are not in that part of the terminal. This way everyone has access to the Cinnabun.
Re:The Point is ... (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed there is:
http://www.met.police.uk/so/at_hotline.htm [police.uk]
http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20080307-terrorist-campaign-photographers-searched-london [france24.com]
Examples of terrorist paraphenalia include cameras, credit cards, mobile phones, computers, suitcases, cell phones and, err, vans.
This is from the same people who brought us my all time favourite 'public security' campaign:
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/News/eyes.htm [art-for-a-change.com]
'Aren't there cameras that talk back if you get unruly on the street?'
Generally only if the unruly behaviour is caused by mushroom intoxication. But we do have rather a lot of cameras:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-details/George+Orwell,+Big+Brother+is+watching+your+house/article.do [thisislondon.co.uk]
Re:So what's the point? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The Point is ... (Score:5, Informative)
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty".
- Thomas Jefferson
But then, if Jefferson were alive today he would already be in Guantanamo. Just check out some of the other things he said.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first".
"...were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter".
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country".
"The strongest reason for the People to retain the Right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government".
"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine".
"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor".
"Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government".
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny".
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent".
And, perhaps most relevant of all today:
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will be".