Fingerprinting foreigners

The Japan Times reports that the Japanese government is considering reintroducing fingerprinting for foreigners.

In an effort to check an increase in crimes committed by foreigners, the government is moving toward introducing compulsory fingerprinting for foreigners entering and leaving Japan — a move that is expected to draw fire from foreign residents in Japan and possibly lead to conflicts with some foreign governments. The government plans to submit a revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law to an ordinary Diet session next year with the aim of implementing the new measure in fiscal 2007.

Until a few years ago, foreign residents were fingerprinted as part of their alien registration. This scheme was abolished in 1999. But now they plan to introduce USA-style fingerprinting for all foreigners entering Japan, whether tourists or residents. (Permanent residents will be exempt.) They say the reason for this is the increasing number of crimes committed by foreigners, even though the crime rate for foreigners is still similar to the rate for Japanese nationals.

There will be privacy issues with this new scheme, especially as they are also considering plans to unify all their data on foreigners collected from immigration, hotels and airlines, and the new smart alien registration cards.