As a European these texts are always a bit embarrassing. The evil USA that abuses our data...
No, European countries suck completely on their own. There are people in jail without due process, we have histories full of systematic abuse of children/people with disabilities in care units, blatant disregard for constitutional rights by executive forces and you have these cases like this surfacing every other week.
You don't need the evil USA to reject biometric data gathering by government. You just need to get your largest boot and point it at the arse of the next public official that is responsible for YOU. Not some imaginary enemy behind a bit of water ffs... rant off
The mistake isn't some agreement with the USA, the problem is that this data might be available in the first place. And yes, this is a case where government/EU is NOT able to safeguard it.
Other than that the text is correct and then we should just need to deal with the realities of needing visas again.
> EDRi recommends the Commission and the Council to push back against the US government’s blackmail and refuse to sell people’s personal data
There is no leverage so I fail to see how this could succeed. Especially if said officials have zero problems with this kind of surveillance. They just have to pretend that they do.
The point missing in the article is that, in order to enter the US, one needs to give the US Govt their photo and fingerprints ("biometric data") anyway.
There are two options: visa-free with the biometric data passing on the wire (no hassle), or visa (a major hassle) and biometric data passing in the airport (a minor one).
As a side note, the EU also collects photo and fingerprints from visitors now. Whereas in the US you only need to go through fingerprinting only once (or maybe "once per passport") and only on arrival, in the EU you need to go through it both on every arrival and every departure.
Both the USA and the EU are doing Evil here. However had, this is not solely confind to biometric data only - this is about selling data to outside agencies, so the EU betrays EU citizens here.
> in the EU you need to go through it both on every arrival and every departure.
You absolutely don't. If you've done it once on your passport/ID you don't need to do it again. And infact there are fast track autonomous lanes that you can just scan your EU passport with biometric chip and fly through. (In theory, there's always idiots who don't realise they don't have it)
Also worth nothing that if you’ve verified your ID on LinkedIn or anything that uses Persona or some other flavour of Palantir - the US already has all this data and much more.
With the major distinction being that a lot of Europeans have absolutely no intention of ever visiting the United States, a country with a history of sometimes more, sometimes less hostility and aggressive intelligence agencies.
If you want to visit a hellhole, go through the hassle. But don't hand out all of our data just because you want to do joyrides.
I hate all this biometric scanning on all sides. As an American it makes me not want to visit the EU to avoid being scanned, and I'd understand the other way too if an EU member was visiting the us.
In the US there have been notorious mistakes of using biometrics to falsely recognize an unknown criminal. Does this happen in the EU too?
It's probably too late but we should try to get rid of this.
And for some passports in the last, say, six years, the probability is significantly increased. There is no official information as far as I know, just some anecdotical evidence from forums.
And before all of that you have to remember all your trips for the last 10 years to enter into DS-160 (you learn to keep a spreadsheet after the first time you do that, UK visas require that as well). And secure an appointment, which (since 2025) must happen in the country of your citizenship, or the country of your residence, which you should prove (sometimes it takes years to get residency documents in some EU countries). If you're unlucky, the waiting time for an appointment might be measured in years too. If you get a waiting time after all, sometimes there are just no appointments available whatsoever with no extra information.
Attending a company event is, of course, not a valid reason to get an expedited appointment. At least not that I've heard.
And I'm sure there are even more tricky things that I haven't heard of.
First it could be something depending on you enrolling like airport fastpass and second it would be a feature that it is complicated for both side to record and process the info so that they have the incentive to do the minimum possible.
But don't be naive, clearly US is not pushing so strong on this feature that it is clearly not just to facilitate your travel and reduce processing time but because they know that they will be able to tap as a friser in the best biometric database of foreign citizens that they could.
It's not clear to me if this would allow access to all biometric data, or "just" to that of people crossing the US border?
And for the latter, what data are we talking about? If it's mostly fingerprints, don't those already get collected upon crossing the border? And can't they already be read from a passport's chip?
I fail to understand the distinction between an ESTA and a visa to be honest. You need to do the paperwork in advance, pay, provide all sort of personal information, and it can be denied, and if approved only for a limited amount of time. Given that both the EU and the UK have reciprocated, it is a fiction that there exists some visa free travel between these 3 zones. And the more hassle you create, the less tourism you will get.
»It is on this basis that EU countries would then adopt their own bilateral EBSP agreements directly with the US (or adapt their existing arrangements).«
So nobody has sold anybody out yet. The solution is to never visit the USA.
The negotiation is only necessitated by the insistence on making travel not a prerequisite for potential harm. The US requests to query information beyond the validity of documents they can prove to have been physically presented to US officers.
What a stupid, hysterical claim. This "sensitive data" is just what's on your passport, fingerprints, criminal history, and terrorism flags (from European agencies), only for people crossing the border. I don't see how you could defend not sharing any of that.
Under the assumption that this framework is somewhat sane and only shares biometric data of those people who actually request an ESTA, I don't see the issue.
This data already leaks whenever you travel legally to the US, because they take it from you as a requirement of entry. All this does is let them check the data they take on entry against the provided data. Which seems fair. The fact this data is already in passports is a very different matter, but that is something the EU has done voluntarily.
I order to know who actually requested it, information needs to be shared that previously was not.
(I can think of technical schemes to limit this to less scary recipients and data, but however you do it, some necessary side-effect remains: Citizens of the EU who do not make such request cannot remain entirely unaffected.)
In border security there are generally two camps, one that uses data and intelligence to go after the worst, large-scale criminal operations and networks, and generally makes travelling easy for the average person, and the other is like traditional cops using traditional tactics… the kind that will miss the person smuggling a kilogram of cocaine in their suitcase but will go after the old man who didn’t declare a pair of socks he bought on a trip. They generally make travel awful.
Support the intelligence-driven side of border security and reject the traditional cop camp.
> one that uses data and intelligence to go after the worst, large-scale criminal operations and networks
History shows that the main question with government and data collection is not "what X makes life easier for citizens" but "who collects/uses X and for what purpose". In the happy case, this may be all well and peachy. The case people rightfully worry about is not that case.
As an aside, I always find it amusing that as a British person that have visited both the US and the Schengen area since the new entry/exit system. Both the US and EU have taken my biometric information (i.e fingerprints) but the UK government has not.
Borders are generally insane. But they are especially rich coming from countries, like the US or many European countries that got most of their wealth from pillaging other territories.
Walls and steel doors are bad enough but it's a good thing we're not birds, or else the world would be covered with wire mesh.
On "selling out" claims. Yet again people not reading the article and trying to misrepresent who was the driving force:
> In 2022, the US government announced that it would require access to biometric databases of countries if they wish to keep visa exemption for their citizens travelling to the US
No chance the world powers (US, China, France, UK, etc.) will allow something like that unless they are the one who create and enforce it. It's basically the first line of defense for homeland security: don't let terrorists into your country.
This is not something I have a real issue with. Most of my privacy concerns are with my own government (the USA, Flock, various TLAs have unfettered communications access in violation of the 4th amendment, etc). I think the exchange of information should be mutual though. I don't care if they want to check me out before I enter their country, seems like a basic step. However, that info should not be shared until one gets a ticket/visa to said foreign country.
- Currently travelers to the US need to give biometric data each time they enter
- New DB connection between EU and US for this purpose
- People will _still_ need to give biometric data each time they enter in order to validate that they carry valid information
Further more, they claim that _the US_ will only request data from travelers. But, my country doesn't know if I travel and where. So the supposed privacy guarantees are empty claims.
It's not 2012 anymore. Everyone knows better, as soon as they get access to that DB, they will start working on scraping all data from it.
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[ 15.0 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] threadNo, European countries suck completely on their own. There are people in jail without due process, we have histories full of systematic abuse of children/people with disabilities in care units, blatant disregard for constitutional rights by executive forces and you have these cases like this surfacing every other week.
You don't need the evil USA to reject biometric data gathering by government. You just need to get your largest boot and point it at the arse of the next public official that is responsible for YOU. Not some imaginary enemy behind a bit of water ffs... rant off
The mistake isn't some agreement with the USA, the problem is that this data might be available in the first place. And yes, this is a case where government/EU is NOT able to safeguard it.
Other than that the text is correct and then we should just need to deal with the realities of needing visas again.
> EDRi recommends the Commission and the Council to push back against the US government’s blackmail and refuse to sell people’s personal data
There is no leverage so I fail to see how this could succeed. Especially if said officials have zero problems with this kind of surveillance. They just have to pretend that they do.
There are two options: visa-free with the biometric data passing on the wire (no hassle), or visa (a major hassle) and biometric data passing in the airport (a minor one).
As a side note, the EU also collects photo and fingerprints from visitors now. Whereas in the US you only need to go through fingerprinting only once (or maybe "once per passport") and only on arrival, in the EU you need to go through it both on every arrival and every departure.
I’ve entered the US something like 150 times over 20 years. Visa free (ESTA) and on a B1 tourist visa.
I’ve been fingerprinted and photographed every single time.
You absolutely don't. If you've done it once on your passport/ID you don't need to do it again. And infact there are fast track autonomous lanes that you can just scan your EU passport with biometric chip and fly through. (In theory, there's always idiots who don't realise they don't have it)
Does this also apply if you arrive by dinghy?
If you want to visit a hellhole, go through the hassle. But don't hand out all of our data just because you want to do joyrides.
In the US there have been notorious mistakes of using biometrics to falsely recognize an unknown criminal. Does this happen in the EU too?
It's probably too late but we should try to get rid of this.
This world is very depressing. I think this may be my last year on the planet.
Since US-issued visas are multiple entry for 10yrs, it's relatively not a hassle at all.
And for some passports in the last, say, six years, the probability is significantly increased. There is no official information as far as I know, just some anecdotical evidence from forums.
And before all of that you have to remember all your trips for the last 10 years to enter into DS-160 (you learn to keep a spreadsheet after the first time you do that, UK visas require that as well). And secure an appointment, which (since 2025) must happen in the country of your citizenship, or the country of your residence, which you should prove (sometimes it takes years to get residency documents in some EU countries). If you're unlucky, the waiting time for an appointment might be measured in years too. If you get a waiting time after all, sometimes there are just no appointments available whatsoever with no extra information.
Attending a company event is, of course, not a valid reason to get an expedited appointment. At least not that I've heard.
And I'm sure there are even more tricky things that I haven't heard of.
But don't be naive, clearly US is not pushing so strong on this feature that it is clearly not just to facilitate your travel and reduce processing time but because they know that they will be able to tap as a friser in the best biometric database of foreign citizens that they could.
And for the latter, what data are we talking about? If it's mostly fingerprints, don't those already get collected upon crossing the border? And can't they already be read from a passport's chip?
So nobody has sold anybody out yet. The solution is to never visit the USA.
The negotiation is only necessitated by the insistence on making travel not a prerequisite for potential harm. The US requests to query information beyond the validity of documents they can prove to have been physically presented to US officers.
This data already leaks whenever you travel legally to the US, because they take it from you as a requirement of entry. All this does is let them check the data they take on entry against the provided data. Which seems fair. The fact this data is already in passports is a very different matter, but that is something the EU has done voluntarily.
I order to know who actually requested it, information needs to be shared that previously was not. (I can think of technical schemes to limit this to less scary recipients and data, but however you do it, some necessary side-effect remains: Citizens of the EU who do not make such request cannot remain entirely unaffected.)
In border security there are generally two camps, one that uses data and intelligence to go after the worst, large-scale criminal operations and networks, and generally makes travelling easy for the average person, and the other is like traditional cops using traditional tactics… the kind that will miss the person smuggling a kilogram of cocaine in their suitcase but will go after the old man who didn’t declare a pair of socks he bought on a trip. They generally make travel awful.
Support the intelligence-driven side of border security and reject the traditional cop camp.
History shows that the main question with government and data collection is not "what X makes life easier for citizens" but "who collects/uses X and for what purpose". In the happy case, this may be all well and peachy. The case people rightfully worry about is not that case.
Walls and steel doors are bad enough but it's a good thing we're not birds, or else the world would be covered with wire mesh.
> In 2022, the US government announced that it would require access to biometric databases of countries if they wish to keep visa exemption for their citizens travelling to the US
Big bad eu !!11!?!
- Currently travelers to the US need to give biometric data each time they enter
- New DB connection between EU and US for this purpose
- People will _still_ need to give biometric data each time they enter in order to validate that they carry valid information
Further more, they claim that _the US_ will only request data from travelers. But, my country doesn't know if I travel and where. So the supposed privacy guarantees are empty claims. It's not 2012 anymore. Everyone knows better, as soon as they get access to that DB, they will start working on scraping all data from it.
There is 0 upsides to this.