Foreigners Fingered
Japan said it will start fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors from next month under stringent new security measures. The new measures, approved by parliament last year, are expected to take effect from November 20, a justice ministry official said.
The new regulations apply to all foreigners 16 and over, who will be photographed and electronically fingerprinted on arrival in Japan. State guests, diplomats, and the 40,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan are exempted as well as permanent residents, including ethnic Koreans born in Japan.
The information is supposed to be needed to assist police with their inquiries in the case of future crimes. According to AFP:
The government says the measures are necessary to tighten security in Japan, which was alarmed by allegations that French Muslim militant Lionel Dumont entered on a forged passport and raised money for extremists. Opposition lawmakers and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations have expressed concern that the measures may infringe on privacy. The Korean Residents Union, which represents Koreans born in Japan who are loyal to Seoul, argues that the bill promotes the view that all foreigners are criminals, even though its members are not subject to the law. The tourism industry is also watching closely amid efforts to boost Japan’s low visitor levels.
Such security measures are not unknown, since the USA adopted a similar scheme after the 9/11 attacks, but the move still seems questionable since “Japan, which has a very low crime rate, does not require visas from nationals of most developed countries for short stays, although it imposes strict restrictions on immigration.”
Poor Mari….she’s my favorite. If I ever become a j-pop singer and part of the...
Shes definitely at the top of my hot list.
perfeckt 10:10
permanent residents aren’t exempt, only “special” permanent residents are exempt.
The term “special permanent resident” refers to foreign residents designated as such under the Special Law on the Immigration Control of, inter alia, those who have lost Japanese nationality on the basis of the Treaty of Peace with Japan.
October 9th, 2007 at 8:41 am“Fingered” doesn’t mean “anally probed”??
October 9th, 2007 at 5:29 pmIsn’t the proper word “fingerprinted” instead?
You, keep your hands where we can see them…
October 9th, 2007 at 5:54 pmI read that the US is also logging ‘biometric’ data on all foreigners. Anyone experienced this yet? (photos & fingerprints)
Welcome to the global police state.
October 9th, 2007 at 7:28 pmWe have always been at war with Eurasia.
Freedom is Slavery!
Ignorance is strength!
War is Peace!
I wonder if this will do us any good.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:22 pmWell, when I come into Japan with my 5 year old, she will be separated from me at a crowded immigration while her daddy gets fingerprinted with with anyone and everyone.
With all the fuss about permanent residence qualifications, you would think we would at least be trusted enough not to be fingerprinted every time we cross the border.
A foreigner can have a family, a business, employees, a home and a mortgage – and is still trusted less than the local Japanese street punk. Is there something except racism that can explain that?
October 10th, 2007 at 6:04 pmThere’s even a video
http://nettv.gov-online.go.jp/prg/prg1203.html
Narita will apparently have some kind of special gate for PR’s that have pre-submitted their prints etc
http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=592
But I think basically they want you to become a citizen if you intend to live long term in Japan. Which I think is fair enough. A shame though that you can’t have dual citizenship in Japan.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:19 pm“A foreigner can have a family, a business, employees, a home and a mortgage – and is still trusted less than the local Japanese street punk. Is there something except racism that can explain that?”
To be fair, you have to admit that a lot of terrorists involved in past cases were people who were well intergrated within the society. Whether they ran a business or had kids didn’t change anything.
Fact is, any adult can be a potential terrorist.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:03 pmBTW, I agree that the traveling Japanese should be fingerprinted too.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:04 pmSeems to me this will only help catch the crackpots and idiots. Anyone who actually thought out a plan of action would figure out a way around it. This might help law enforcement after the fact and is publicized enough to falsely reassure the general public. Look at terrorism in Japan. Aum Shinrikyo, Red Army, etc. All homegrown and unseen with a system like this.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:41 pm“any adult can be a potential terrorist”
Well, yes, and any poker hand can win the pot. That sort of thing is said by people to justify wasteful and useless “security” measures.
It is meaningless to speak of possibilities and ignore probabilities.
But, since you want all Japanese fingerprinted as well, I suppose this is a moot point. Of course, Japanese terrorists don’t need to leave the country.
There is a political reason for this action. In Fukuoka, all garbage bins were removed from bus stops to prevent bombs. What a coincidence that it juts happens to be a big money-saver.
Recently, some supermarkets force to to ask for a bag to carry my 2 dozen items home in. They say it’s to help the environment. Surprise, surprise. That, too, just happens to save them money.
Whatever this is, a ruse to employ more people, to gain more tax funds, or to help the company that makes and stores the fingerprint scans, you can be pretty well sure that it will have nothing to do with stopping terrorism.
October 10th, 2007 at 9:59 pm“I read that the US is also logging ‘biometric’ data on all foreigners. Anyone experienced this yet? (photos & fingerprints)”.
Any Japanese (among other foreigners) going to the States will have to submit to a fingerprinting and have his or her photograph taken. (This system was introduced in 2004, I believe.) The process takes an extra 15 seconds or so at most. There has not been much of an outcry against the system but I will admit that it does not seem to me to offer sufficient cost-benefit advantages to justify its introduction.
That said, any foreigner coming into a country should expect to be subject to extra scrutiny and as long as such scrutiny is more or less applied uniformly and is generally comparable to measures taken in other advanced countries, I’m not sure that I understand what the fuss is all about. Going through customs is not supposed to be pleasant. (And just for the record, I also agree that the measures should be applied to citizens as well.)
October 10th, 2007 at 10:38 pm“Well, when I come into Japan with my 5 year old, she will be separated from me at a crowded immigration while her daddy gets fingerprinted with with anyone and everyone.”
I could be wrong, but aren’t foreign nationals required to line up separately irrespective of the fingerprinting requirement?
October 10th, 2007 at 11:06 pmRyo, foreign residents (that even includes one-year work visa holders) have always been able to go through the Japanese line. At least in the 17 years I have been here.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:40 amghoti: Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that. Then the least they could do is set up fingerprinting stations at each domestic booth as well to accommodate foreign residents.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:19 am[...] Most notably, Windows 1.0 was released in 1985. But for many of us today is the day non-Japanese start to get fingerprinted and photographed on arrival according to a new law. [...]
November 20th, 2007 at 4:00 am