Next : finger printing out?

Passport check procedures to be tightened at Japan's airports

Saturday 29th March, 06:30 PM JST

TOKYO —

The transport ministry will require all airlines to check the passports of passengers at the boarding gates of international airports as early as July, ministry sources said Saturday. According to the sources at the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, the move is intended to prevent terrorists and smugglers from traveling on international flights.

Airline officials will crosscheck the names on passports and air tickets and check passengers’ faces against the photos in their passports, the sources said, adding the procedure will take around five seconds for each passenger.

The move is intended to strengthen security ahead of July’s Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido.

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I personally have been through this ultimate visual checking before boarding many times. Was it when leaving Japan? Can't remember though. Now, where is the opportunity to compulsory sell airlines some hardware and cash on departure as well? What about general finger printing when leaving Japan? Smugglers and terrorists in Japan before 11/20 07 are cooked. But they still will be allowed to travel domestically. Next to come is ubiquitous finger printing, and at long last, equality obtained with the rest of Japan.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration

Reading in French

For French readers only, a synthetic appraisal of the biometrics rules in Japan. Link to the article.
cle.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration, Japan

11/20 and its aftermaths

I imagine the organizers of the Toni Negri attendance at a conference in Tokyo next week have been pissed off by the Japanese authorities denying Negri access to Japan. The only apparent link with 11/20 is that the announcement of the denying was released here on March 20. Just a coincidence. Organizers must be stunned for sure, but where were they on 11/20? What were they doing on 11/20? Sleeping? After all, what is the relationship between this denying and 11/20? Nothing man, absolutely nothing.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration, Japan, Tokyo

Foreign Residents and Nationalized Citizens Association

FRANCA, the Foreign Residents and Nationalized Citizens Association has an inaugural meeting on March 15th. More here. Information about FRANCA at national level is here.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration

What a wonderful world

Japanese electronic firm Omron has applied a proprietary image analysis technology to the recording and gender/age differentiation of passengers going through ticket gates. The technology is to be applied both for passengers service management and to visually tag tresspassers who push through the gates without tickets, meaning that a database of passengers faces will be maintained, shared, lost an messed with. Instant detection of tresspassers will ring a bell and keep guardmen busy. The next step is to have that PASSMO card inserted under the skin with gift points as an incentive to go through surgery.

The illustration suggests that honest passengers data will be gathered for the sake of data mining whereas tresspassers will be filed individually.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration