Fingerprinting at Narita, Terminal 2

A friend of mine (TokyoExpat) recently came back through Narita Terminal 2. Here is his experience:

So, I made it through the new immigration checks at Narita T2. I was lucky to get through quickly...

On approach to the immigration section, I could see the hoards of people lining up. I had been expecting the worst and there it was. There were at least 500 people lining up waiting to go through gates. Next to this were the completely empty lines for Japanese passport holders. What a joke.Then I noticed the section in between! A new sectioned signposted with orange signs "re-entry permit holders". There were two gates with only two gaijins waiting. I moved over to that line away from the hundreds and hundreds of people waiting. I felt guilty but glad not be in the queue for another hour or more at least. There were a group of people off to the side as they obviously had some kind of problem. I won't know what the immigration officer was telling them. Were they the terrorists that Japan is looking for? I doubt it as they were school kids - from what I could see. Anyway, now I was almost at the point of submitting my face and fingers to the vast data bank open to Japanese government agencies. Sure enough the kind Japanese immigration office let out a "hai" calling me up before dryly took my passport and entry documentation. No other words passed form his lips as the remaining prompts for me to re-enter Japan came form the cute NEC screen. I was requested by the machine to press my two index fingers on the pads as well as looking into the camera shortly thereafter. Once my passport pages had wastefully been filled with more useless over sized stamps, it was handed back to me. I am now just another biometric piece of data. You could tell the relief of all the Japanese people in the airport as they were safe in the knowledge that thousands of sets of data are now on file.

My experience was over within minutes. My fellow passengers were destined to stay at Narita for a while longer. And what for? Now I am sure that we are one step further on the way to state control as another government has more information on me than they actually need.

Spanish version now online

Porque amamos Japón, estamos en contra de las nuevas medidas de
seguridad dirigidas a los extranjeros que entran a Japón:

- Contra la disposición de tomar las huellas digitales de los
extranjeros al entrar a Japón.
- Un tratamiento que debe ser reservado a criminales, degradante para
todos los extranjeros inocentes.
- Las familias mixtas, compuestas por un japonés y un extranjero, no
desean ser separadas al momento de pasar los controles, y no aceptan
un trato degradante para uno de sus miembros.
- Los extranjeros que viven Japón no son visitantes. Viven acá,
trabajan acá, pagan impuestos acá. Tienen derecho a recibir el mismo
trato que los japoneses al entrar al territorio, pues reingresan a su
casa.
- Ningún extranjero ha cometido jamás un acto terrorista en suelo
japonés.
- Medidas así son nefastas para la imagen de Japón, serán
perjudiciales para la afluencia de turistas al país.

Protest sheet version 1.1.1 + arabic version

Thanks to reader's help, a new version is done with an arabic part.
And two spelling mistakes have been corrected.

Links to download are located on the upper right corner of this screen.