5 ms·
If the US gets the data anyway, why the need for access?
by RandomLensman 2mo ago
If the US gets the data anyway, why the need for access?
- kalleboo 2mo agoI would imagine it to match that the biometrics on file with the biometrics presented at the border to catch forgeries?
- RandomLensman 2mo agoIs there a high incidence of forgeries?
- bluGill 2mo agoProbably not high, but forgeries are the people of most concern. Most people are honest travelers (either on business or vacation), and will go back home. Most people only commit crimes of the type "I didn't know this thing was illegal here: it is legal and common back home" - and the agent who catches it responds "I find a bunch of you every day who didn't know that - just put it in the destroy bucket and have fun" (technically they can arrest you for trying to bring something illegal in, but they know this is an honest mistake that isn't worth doing anything more about) The forgeries are rare, but they are also the people customs cares most about. Those people who are planning to commit a serious crime of some sort.
- christoph 2mo agoAlso think espionage/intelligence - those passports won't be forgeries (as they will gov issued), but there will be people travelling around the world with multiple "identities" shall we say, and this is going to make all that much harder.
- CPLX 2mo agoIt's not forgery so much as people using the same passport. People look similar.
- RandomLensman 2mo agoThen fingerprints in passport and person shouldn't match, no?
- tokai 2mo agoTo reduce friction of traveling to the US obviously.
- RandomLensman 2mo agoNo more waiting in a long immigration queue?
- phoronixrly 2mo agoI've always wanted to wait in an ICE concentration camp instead
- maratc 2mo agoI assume you would have to wait anyway but the processing of your person would be faster. With that, I much prefer US immigration queues than EU immigration queues — as of 2026, my US times are much faster than my EU times.
- ruszki 2mo agoIt probably matters where, because the longest waiting times were always in the US for me. Especially since digital passports, the queue into the EU is always extremely quick with those, while it’s still the same into the US (at least in Boston and Los Angeles, where I usually land).
- some_random 2mo agoIt's to validate that the fingerprints of the person arriving are the same as the fingerprints of the person who got the passport.
- RandomLensman 2mo agoThe fingerprints in the passport can't do that?
- rafram 2mo agoMost countries' passports don't include fingerprint data. The US passport application process is entirely digital/by mail, for example, with no fingerprinting at all.
- RandomLensman 2mo agoEU passports do.
- mothballed 2mo agoThe average US border official is a (angry) moron (with a badge and a gun). They've literally fingerprinted me on entry with a US passport because they were too stupid to figure out US citizens don't have to do that. I have been interrogated by CBP to ask if I "work in the country" despite being a citizen. Anything that changes the process from the simplest one-size-fits all will be fucked up, they cannot differentiate the process between foreigner and citizen let alone EU vs some other place. Edit: Every time I share my border stories I get accused of lying or having done something wrong. I have much much crazier ones. No one believes it until it happens to them. Count yourself lucky if you've never been strip searched or imprisoned by these psychopaths, any belief they are reasonable are formed because you were lucky and have a naïve sort of optimism that if you do everything right it won't happen to you.
- rafram 2mo ago