It’s taste-of-your-own-medicine time in Japan. The Australian paper The Age reports that starting next month, foreigners visiting the Asian country will be subject to mandatory fingerprint and digital photograph collection. This includes not only tourists but the nearly 800,000 foreign residents already living in the country.
What I find particularly delightful is how angry people are getting about the new security measures. The Age writes that “Amnesty International is calling for the immigration plan to be abandoned”, saying “Making only foreigners provide this data is discriminatory.” What the heck do you call the US policy? Why don’t you have a problem with that?
I can see where the Japanese want to get a head start on security and it’s good that they’re taking a proactive approach to anti-terrorism. But isn’t one of the big reasons that reasons America is a target is that we’re the thousand-pound gorilla meddling in other countries’ affairs? Seems that Japan doesn’t subscribe to that sort of foolishness.
They can have my fingerprints. After this post, the DHS is going to do a thorough background check on me anyway, so there’s no hiding anything now (Mom and Dad, please dig up and burn the Romanian money I have buried behind the bougainvillea in the garden).
Note, if you’re connecting through Japan I don’t believe this extra security measure applies.