Tarto in Japan

After a 10-day business trip to France (or to be more accurate, 4 days of work and 6 of vacations), I came back to Japan a week ago and had to go through the new entry procedures in place since november 2007.

Every foreigner who wants to enter Japan now has to be fingerprinted, photographed and potentially questioned. Every control booth is equipped with a brand new camera and a device to register fingerprints. Of course I didn't take pictures!...

This procedure obviously slows down the immigration lines, as it takes about 20-30 additional seconds, which is low on an individually basis, but a lot when taking into account the number of entrants. Consequently, unless they increase the number of booths, the lines are going to grow significantly. Besides, and that is really burdensome, one has to go through the screening every time they enter the country!...

But more important than speed is the reason. Why were those measures put in place? The official explanation is related to the rise of terrorism worldwide: according to the government, Japan supported the US in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and thus is a potential target...Now I don't understand how storing pictures and fingerprints will concretely help. I've thought of the following scenarios:

- faster identification from fingerprints found on a crime scene (if they belong to a foreigner...)

- identification of people trying to enter Japan several times under different identities

- automatic match of biometric data with international databases

If you have other ideas, please let me know.

There have of course been many criticisms. Without even talking about the potential abuses (fraudulous transmission of data to third parties etc), which are inherent to every system, let me briefly describe the main issues.

First of all, those measures basically imply that every foreigner is a potential menace, because Japanese people are not bound by them. This segregation does not have any empirical foundation. Indeed, the only significant attack in Japan, that is the saring gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995, was carried out by Aum...a Japanese sect!...Considering that, they'd better fingerprint all Japanese citizens...

Furthermore, there is nothing that lets suppose an attack, and therefore justifies such measures. Let's be cynical and admit that the USA are far ahead on the waiting list. Of course this does not mean that Japan is totally safe and nothing's ever going to happen, but there is no tangible element to justify those measures.

Furthermore, it can only have a bad impact on tourism: even though most tourists will not mind being fingerprinted, there will obviously be people who prefer to go somewhere else, where they are not treated as potential terrorists.

Finally, concerns have also been raised regarding business: indeed, businessmen who often travel to Japan will certainly not accept to line up every time they want to enter the country. It may eventually play in favor for Hong Kong or Singapore, rival business centers in Asia with much lighter procedures...

But the best thing is that fingerprinting was used in the past, and finally abolished in 1999 following years of protests from foreign residents. And now they put it back again under the pretext of terrorism...