U.S.-European differences on U.S. 10-digit fingerprints requirement

George Bernard Shaw famously said that America and England were two countries separated by a common language? Here is a timely exchange that shows how the two countries may be separated by different perceptions of the threat they face and the means taken to address that threat.

On 11 October, the Financial Times’s columnist “Observer” wrote a column titled “Canada Bound” in which he criticized U.S. biometrics practices. He wrote:

One of the unheralded triumphs of US policy in recent years has been its success in persuading people from other countries that they are unwelcome within the country’s borders.

Foreign university students, software engineers, business people wishing to attend conferences, academics — all can attest to the difficulty of entering the U.S. It is a subject that has made American business leaders concerned about the country’s ability to compete effectively in the era of globalisation.

Those worries are not likely to go away any time soon. This week, the White House released its national strategy for homeland security, a document that was long on words but short on details.

One element the 53-page document spelled out, however, was the need for foreigners to provide more fingerprints in the future.

Visitors to the U.S. are used to long queues at airports as foreigner after foreigner is forced to provide a set of two fingerprints — both index fingers — as part of the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (Visit) programme.

Those lines are set to become longer. “In the face of resourceful terrorists … we must continue to expand the US-VISIT programme’s biometric enrolment from two fingerprints to 10 fingerprints,” the strategy paper urged.

The document called for more advanced “multi-modal biometric recognition capabilities” using data from fingerprints, the face and the iris.

The new 10-fingerprint policy would seem likely to have a deterrent effect on terrorists.

While would-be evil-doers may have been relaxed about having two fingerprints on file with the US government, they certainly will be forced to rethink their plans when asked to turn over eight additional prints.

In today’s FT, Russ Knocke, DHS spokesman, responds:

Your Observer column… mocks my country’s new 10-print policy for fingerprint collection, asserting that it would increase waiting times for legitimate travellers.

But as your column admits, we currently collect index fingerprints. Since both hands are already involved, common sense suggests that our new policy will not produce delays.

What it will do is help protect visitors and others from those who wish to harm them. Through a 10-print system, we can compare prints not only against databases of known terrorists but also against those latent prints collected from battlefields and safe houses around the world.

The FT has reported well on the terrorist threat. Enhanced fingerprint collection is a self-evidently effective response, as anyone who watches modern crime dramas can attest.

You tell them, Russ!