Passport StampsWith only one week to go before Japan’s new entry procedures go into effect, foreigners are becoming even more vocal about the coming changes.  I had written about this subject a few months ago, but figured it was time to put this question into better context and raise some of my own concerns regarding Japan’s ‘Friendly Factor’.

I’ve come to Japan three times in the last 18 months, with the most recent arrival being a semi-permanent one.  With each trip, I’ve had some run-in with immigration and needed some extra attention.  This wasn’t because of any legal restrictions against me, but instead my own stupidity.  Misreading the airport signs and going through the wrong Customs & Immigration officers in Tokyo (twice).  Having an official meet me in Nagoya due to complications in Portland.  Not understanding a question and sitting in an office with another Canadian from Edmonton that made the same mistake while the immigration officers decide what to do about our invalid temporary visa (my fault for getting in the wrong line, though).  So I’ve certainly had some run-ins with this nation’s oddly worded signs and border police, but  nothing that I’d consider unfriendly.

The same is said about almost everyone I’ve spoken to in Japan.  Police officers, while not the most intimidating or responsive justice officials I’ve ever encountered, will make the effort to help me out when asked.  Rail conductors and station masters, while visibly uncomfortable with my poor language skills, will try to help me when I’m confused or uncertain.  At restaurants and cafe’s, servers often try to avoid dealing with me unless I’m with my wife, but they’re not rude or discourteous if they happen to be unlucky enough to “serve the gaijin”.  And, oddly enough, convenience store staff seem to have the least amount of trouble with my foreign blood.

This is the very same treatment I’ve seen afforded to non-English speaking tourists in Vancouver, Toronto and Niagara Falls in my home country; the ever multi-cultural Canada.  Natives are typically friendly in almost every nation.  It’s the language barrier and misunderstood unspoken language that create the image of an irate or obtuse national.

Okay … so the people are nice, but what about the upcoming changes to Japan’s Entry Procedures?  I don’t see what the problem is, really.

Whenever visitors want to come to a country, they need to ask that nation’s permission.  This is true in any country that has a semi-functional government body.  These nations, in turn, request certain pieces of personal information from us before deciding to grant or reject our petition for entry.  Many western people don’t even realize this is happening as we’re often lucky enough to come from a country that has a solid working relationship with the international community.  So, if we’re already giving up so much personal information (our names, addresses, citizenship, criminal history, etc), why not also give a picture and digital copy of our fingerprints?

Is this an invasion of privacy?  Is it part of some ‘guilty until proven innocent’ society?  These statements couldn’t be further from the truth.

While Japan’s pension fund database is a joke, the system created to handle the large number of foreign visitors is top notch.  This system will reduce the  number of people coming on fake passports because they can be stopped right at Customs & Immigration.  People that are barred from re-entry for whatever reason on one passport will no longer be able to come back on a different passport (which is possible with many countries just by upgrading a passport, or reporting it stolen and having it replaced).  Known terrorists, felons and otherwise unwelcome people can also be blocked and evicted beforehand.  All of this can be accomplished by placing a finger on a tiny pad for 2 seconds, so how is it a bad thing?

On top of the ability to screen visitors to this great nation, the police will have a greater resource available to check their collected fingerprints against.  Naturally, there is the potential for false positives but, short of submitting DNA at customs, this is one of the most effective ways to catch potential criminals.  This is not the unholy human tracking system that some believe.  This is not Japan’s attempt to close their borders or corral foreigners, either.  As it is, we’re already being tracked any time we enter or leave any nation on this planet.  Supplying something as simple as a biometric signature that’s way too cumbersome to be used as a site-by-site locator isn’t going to make that big a deal for 99% of us.

I’m not going to use the tiresome statement that “if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear” because that line is nothing but BS spouted by those in denial of the world around them.  Do we have anything to fear?  The short answer is ‘yes’, but the chances of this information being used against us is quite small.

Anything stored in a database can be extracted from a database.  That information can then be sold to the highest bidder, altered to frame us for a crime we didn’t commit, or any number of life-shattering circumstances.  Looking at this nation’s history of well-designed databases and data security breaches we might be quick to panic but, after careful examination of the available information on this system and its implementation, we really have very little to worry about.  Unless the system is breached by the team that developed it (or the administrators that maintain it), our biometric information and historical itineraries are quite safe from prying eyes.

All-in-all, I doubt there will be many problems with this sytem after the initial bugs are worked out.  At worst, our fingerprints will match a known felon and cause a slight delay at Customs.  But this is what the mandatory photo is going to be used for … visual verification.  If Japan really wanted to make things difficult for foreigners, we’d have a GPS tracking device attached to our ankles.  The two extra details they’re requesting on entry isn’t going to be useful in any situation outside of the legal system.