'Fortress Europe': EU Visitors to Be Fingerprinted

by Jarrett Martineau | February 13, 2008 at 04:43 pm

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So much data is now being created, transferred, stored, and exchanged -- both within nations and internationally -- that databases will surely become the most valuable symbols of our information economy, as they are increasingly relied on to regulate everything from immigration and crime to consumer spending and genetic code. All Your Data Are Belong To Us? Or are we more than our trackable bytes?

Every visitor to the European Union would have to provide
fingerprints before being allowed to enter, under plans unveiled yesterday
to clamp down on illegal immigration.

The move to record the arrival and departure of non-EU citizens and to store
the data in a single European database is part of a wider overhaul of border
security. It is aimed at the largest single category of illegal migrants:
people who remain once their visa or permit has expired.

Franco Frattini, the EU Justice Commissioner, argued that the existence of the
electronic register containing a visitor’s personal details and final
destination would make it possible to identify overstayers.

The scheme, which must be approved by all 27 EU governments before it can come
into force in 2013 as proposed, has been criticised by civil rights groups.
They fear that it could lead to a “fortress Europe” mentality against
foreigners and to identity theft if the data were lost or stolen.