Fooled

I blogged recently about biometric systems at Japan’s airports and the issues I have with it. On entering Japan, immigration officials ask you to plonk the index fingers of both hands onto a fingerprint scanner, which scans your fingerprints and instantly cross-checks them with an international database of fugitives, terrorists and foreigners with deportation records. Well, I’ve said before that fingerprinting systems can be fooled and it seems poor old Japan’s $AU 64 million screening system can be well and truly fooled – by a piece of tape!

A South Korean woman was turned away by immigration authorities in 2008 because of a deportation order after illegally staying in Japan. Because of her record, she was not allowed to enter Japan again for 5 years. But she decided to have another crack at it. And here’s something the Japanese dudes need to think about because apparently a South Korean broker supplied her with a fake passport and special tapes she used to cover her fingerprints.

Seems the special fingerprint altering tape had someone else’s fingerprints and the woman simply held the tape over her own index fingers and tricked the system. Now, I don’t think you need to be Einstein here – if you can fool a sophisticated, multi-million dollar biometric system so easily – with tape stuck onto your own fingers – IMHO this calls into serious question biometrics and their reliability. And Japan, if there are South Korean brokers like this, just think of how many people might have slipped by your fancy system! Japanese authorities will now review the current immigration screening system (smart idea).

I always go back to the movie, Minority Report. Remember when the Tom Cruise character, John Anderton, had an eyeball replacement? I could barely watch that scene: dodgy doctors, unsanitary conditions and so on. But I thought then, yep, this is the future – a black market geared towards evading so-called sophisticated biometric systems. I imagined a Dystopian future filled with unsavoury criminals cutting off people’s fingers so they could steal fingerprints or kidnapping people to steal eyeballs. But who would have imagined it could be so simple to fool a biometric guardian – using tape!

I thought I might help out Japanese immigration as they review their biometric system by doing some research on how exactly you could fool a fingerprint identification system. So Japanese dudes, you might wish to watch this short but informative video. Or you could read these helpful step-by-step instructions on using gelatine and water to fake fingerprints.

Even better, they could contact a Japanese cryptographer, Tsutomu Matsumoto, who wrote a scholarly article on the use of artificial fingers (or gummy fingers made from Gummi Bears, which consist of gelatine) and how there was a high rate of acceptance by fingerprint scanners of the fake prints. And a really good collection of articles and links on faking fingerprints and fooling scanners is here. Apparently even good old Play-Doh can foil a fingerprint scanning system. Really, if society is being asked to accept more intrusive security in the name of the War on Terror or whatever other flimsy excuse, you would like to think that the security measure being used is robust.

One would hope that Japanese authorities did some of this basic research before throwing $64 million at a system that can be duped by a Gummi Bear. We have Jelly Babies here in Australia – wonder what I could do with them?!

Image source: Wikipedia

Welcome to Japan

On November 20 2007, Japan passed a law requiring all non-Japanese citizens over 16 years of age to be fingerprinted and photographed when entering Japan. The law also encompassed foreign nationals living in Japan.

I blogged about this at the time and questioned whether the Japanese had the wrong targets – the biometrics programme was supposedly being introduced to counter “the war on terror”. So the argument seemed to be foreigners equal terrorists, so let’s round ’em up, fingerprint and photograph them. Japanese authorities seemed to conveniently forget that domestic, not foreign, terrorism is their problem (Sarin gas attack in Tokyo subway as an example). So dudes: if you really want to smoke out terrorists, fingerprint everyone, including Japanese citizens. But I reckon your country is pretty low on Al Qaeda’s list of who or what to blow up.

Criticism at the time even suggested that Japan’s new biometric system had more to do with xenophobia and racism. Of course, the real reason is that biometrics is BIG business since 9/11. The biometrics industry is predicted to be worth more than US $7 billion a year by 2012. This is why we will all be subjected in the future to being fingerprinted and photographed to death.

However, when it comes to Google StreetView, the Japanese seem to mind very much if THEY are the targets of surveillance. Forget the poor foreigners lining up in immigration to get fingerprinted and snapped! You know what I think of StreetView. If you don’t, go here and here. StreetView hit Japan in August 2008 with the insidious Google vans cruising up and down the streets of twelve Japanese cities.

But a bunch of Japanese academics, journalists and lawyers have sent a petition to Google’s Japanese subsidiary demanding that StreetView be canned because….it’s an invasion of privacy. Yeah, could have told them that. The petition in part said that the Google service “constitutes violent infringement on citizens’ privacy by photographing residential areas, including community roads, and publishing their images without the consent of communities and citizens” and that StreetView is distributing private information “more easily, widely, massively and permanently than ordinary cameras and surveillance cameras do”. Mmmmmm…..seems though they might be more sensitive about Japanese “love hotels” being captured by StreetView and showing couples walking in or out.

Well dudes, have a think about this – whilst your complaining about violation of your privacy, what about foreigners who are subjected to biometrics?  Aside from the fact that I wonder if targeting a particular group (ie non-Japanese citizens) could be legally challenged, think about the fact that fingerprints and photographs comprise unique digital records, which can be reproduced, stolen or shared with other Governments (eg the US) against the will or the knowledge of said poor foreign national. The legislation that passed into law Japan’s biometric programme specifically states that digital information collected  will be checked against international crime and terrorism databases, as well as domestic crime records and then stored for an unspecified time. So whilst Japanese citizens are fretting over distribution of private information and being caught on StreetView, foreigners have to worry about what information the Japanese will share about them with foreign governments.

Let’s not kid ourselves by naively thinking that our private information can’t or won’t be shared. Northwest airlines happily handed over passenger information to NASA, despite assuring passengers that the airline would not share confidential passenger data. JetBlue has admitted that it secretly gave  passenger records including names, addresses, phone numbers and flight information to a Defense Department contractor. I could give you many more examples.

Japanese citizens: welcome to the world of surveillance.

Intrusive airport technology

A while ago, I told you about the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) making life more difficult for weary travellers by installing 3D body scanners in 10 airports across America. Travellers are whacked into glass booths and subjected to a 3D body scan, which reveals intimate body parts. This of course would reveal people who have concealed objects but also people who have colostomy bags or women who have breast implants. Stuff they may wish to keep private and not have revealed. Maybe people don’t care about this but then again, maybe they do – because there’s now a backlash against this intrusive technology.

I read recently that Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney airports were trialling this technology. A friend of mine was worried about going to Melbourne – that she’d be hauled aside and shoved into a glass booth. But so far, the trial is voluntary. Breezing through Melbourne airport, my friend was in fact asked to participate and she flatly refused (yeah, I have some sensible friends). She thought it was all pretty “sinister” (in her words).

But apparently reports that the European Union may ban such intrusive technology is not deterring the Office of Transport Security from subjecting people to body scanning. A spokesperson said: “The faces are automatically blurred and … it’s only a chalk-style outline, it’s not as invasive as some of the other equipment that we’ve got”. And what would that technology be, I might ask?

So you enter some booth, you get scanned, the image isn’t saved because the person screening hits a button to zap the image. Sounds innocent of course but it’s just another intrusion we’re expected to put up with in the name of the “war on terrorists”. And in a clever twist, the body scanners are said to be reasonably quick, so passengers won’t have to queue up in long lines – the average sheep amongst us would consider this a bonus and therefore not object to the scanning.

European Union lawmakers are describing this body scanning business as “virtual strip searches” (smart dudes if you ask me) and are calling for a detailed study of the technology before it is implemented throughout the EU. The lawmakers have adopted a non-binding resolution calling for the European Commission to carry out an economic, medical and human rights assessment of the impact of body scanning technology. An EU parliamentarian says: “I think this is an offence against human dignity. Using this technology does not make us safer. These are machines that allow for you to be seen totally naked”.

I would ask whether here in Australia there was a public consultation process or whether a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) on the impact of the trial was carried out.  So I checked out the Australian Privacy Foundation to see what they had to say and yep, looks like a PIA has never been done and the AFP are loudly calling for one in a Policy Statement.  The AFP makes the following (extremely sensible) observations that I hope will raise serious questions about body scanning technology:

1. Any scheme that has significant potential to intrude into privacy, in any of its forms, needs to be the subject of a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA). A preliminary PIA is necessary even before trials of such a nature are undertaken.
2. The Office claims that privacy is protected because “the officer examining the images is located away from the screening lane and cannot see [the person concerned]”. This suggests a serious lack of appreciation of the nature of privacy. Many people regard the appearance of their naked bodies as being private, and are concerned about a breach of this expectation whether or not the person looking at the image knows who they are.
3. Any privacy-intrusive measure requires justification, and exposure of the justification to review. It is far from clear what the problem is that this technology is meant to address, and far from clear that it is any more effective or efficient in addressing that problem than are other, less privacy-intrusive alternatives.
4. The trials should be halted, and a PIA conducted.
5. This technology exposes the serious limitations on current privacy laws. They are limited to protection of ‘personal information’ and do not apply to the intrusion involved in depersonalised body-scanning.

UPDATE: I might just move to Germany. Apparently, the Interior Ministry has announced that no matter what the decision of the EU, Germany will NOT adopt the body scanning technology. Interior Minister Gabriele Hermani told the Associated Press, “We won’t join in with this nonsense.” Smart dude. Love your work.

UPDATE: The European Commission has shelved controversial plans to introduce full body scanners. Yeah!!!

Police state USA II

Following yesterday’s post of pre-emptive raids on protesters, comes another story that just serves to remind me why I refuse to step foot on US soil (before my favourite 18-year old gamer emails me yet again. I’ve been there, done that – visited the US in the 1990s before the country went berserk with biometrics).

My RSS feeds deliver to me lots of stuff about the environment and one of my favourites is Natural News. This site is more about natural living and natural health than it is about observations on the police state the US has become. But the other day in came this story.

One Natural News staffer spent a month in Ecuador and found himself trapped in a Salvidor Dali painting on his return to the US. It began with what he refers to as “the immigration chamber” at Miami airport. In blistering heat, he and about a thousand other hapless American victims citizens waited for 1.5 hours in line to have their passports stamped for re-entry. (Personally, I would have turned around and gone back to Ecuador!).

There was no water available for thirsty people. After about half an hour, the crowd was growing restless but were told to shut up with the underlying threat being you’ll be hauled off if you don’t obey. As the Natural News staffers says: “Welcome to Police State USA. This is how the United States treats its own citizens returning from abroad. Imagine how it treats non-citizens!”. (Yes, well I won’t be finding out as I will never step foot in the country again!).

He compared this saga to the immigration line in Ecuador –  people queuing up in a polite, zigzag fashion, which means you don’t have to be a mind reader and pick the shortest queue. In the US (so I’m told) you have to play mind reader and pray to God you have picked the queue with a dude who is a whiz at processing passports and that 40 people don’t step over you as they rush to join the same line. And in Ecuador it took six minutes to breeze through passport control.

What then really piqued my interest was the comments on food. During my sojourn in Europe, I was amazed at the freshness of the food in Portugal. My mother was busy complaining when she came to live with us in 2005 that you couldn’t get fresh food these days, that you had to buy it from a supermarket, wrapped in plastic and tasting like plastic. In Portugal, there are still “corner stores” where you can buy fresh vegetables with the dirt still clinging to them. So coming back from Ecuador, where he’d spent 30 days living on fresh produce out of a vege patch, another observation was that in the US you go indoors to get your food. This is a no-brainer: we buy food from supermarkets mainly but when you hear it like this “we buy our food indoors”, that really makes you wonder how warped our society has become.  I bought a punnet of strawberries the other day for an exorbitant cost and the very next day, there was furry mould on them. The food we are forced to buy in Australia by the growing monopoly of two supermarkets is not fresh IMHO. It’s wrapped in plastic to within an inch of its life and reeking of pesticides, herbicides, colourings, flavourings and so on. For AU$65.00, we bought a huge amount of groceries in Portugal – three wines, 2 huge cheese wheels and lots of other items. When we returned to Australia, we spent $180.00 on far less food stuff.

And then the writer makes an observation about Florida – that it’s artificial and dead. Never been there so can’t comment. But this recalled to my mind the time I stayed in an eco-camp in South Africa. Individual huts far away from one another. High up on stilts overhanging the river. We went to bed; turned the lights off and…..I bolted upright. I’d never heard such noise – frogs, hippos, hyenas, lion roars. And the sky – stuffed full of glittering stars.

In our cities, the noise is of machines, mobile phones, people. And the brilliant night sky is diluted by streetlights. We live indoors watching TV and DVDs. If we go outdoors, we spend mindlessly on credit cards as though we are numbing some deep rooted angst we can’t articulate.

The article made another interesting observation: “Coming back to America made it immediately obvious to me how fake and fragile the whole system really was. Ecuador may be a lot less wealthy, but it’s based on reality, not a fabricated delusion of wealth”. And the final sledge-hammer of a comment:

“..it became immediately clear to me upon returning to the United States that the American people have little connection with reality. They live in their fake particle-board-and-drywall homes, they spend money they don’t have, they eat fake food made in a factory somewhere, they take fake chemical medicines; their lawns are fake, their neighborhoods are fake, their parks are fake and even their boobs are fake.”

Could not have written it better. And simply replace “the American people” with “the Australian people” – I think we are just as disconnected from reality frankly.

Like the Titanic

The Titanic was said to be unsinkable and e-passports are supposed to be “unfakeable”. So e-passports like the Australian passport have a chip in them (thankfully, NZ passports don’t have the dreaded chip…yet). But it seems microchipped passports can be cloned in a matter of minutes – quell horror! Worse: the computer software designed to sniff out a fake and set off lights, bells and whistles was completely duped by the fake passports.

Of course, microchipped passports were introduced to deter terrorists and criminals. The Times decided to do a cunning test to see if they could expose flaws in the security system used at international airports. The Times had a computer expert clone the chips used in two British passports and implant digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. I’ve blogged before on biometrics and potential flaws but when you read that the passport with the altered chip and image of Osama bin Laden breezed through the security system and was recognised as genuine by the passport scanning software, Golden Reader – well, not sure whether to laugh or be REALLY worried. The passport scanning software is endorsed by the UN Agency that sets the standards for e-passports.

The researcher who cloned the passports used simple equipment: a publicly available programming code; his own software; £40 card reader and two £10 RFID chips and he took only a few hours to produce the bogus passports, which included deciphering the encryption key used in e-passports. It gets even better: the fake Osama passport used a baby boy’s microchip and the passport of a 36-year old woman was altered to show the image of Hiba Darghmeh, a Palestinian suicide bomber who killed three people in 2003.

An e-passport microchip contains vital information: a person’s name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, issue and expiration dates, and the person’s passport photo. And when the passport is within a few centimetres of a passport scanner, all this information is revealed. But since RFID signals are used, it’s quite possible that a portable scanner could be used to read the e-passport say as it’s being carried by someone through an airport. The RFID chip is encrypted (ie locked) but as The Times clearly demonstrated, a computer expert with basic equipment can decipher the key. As technology and hackers get more powerful, I’m sure that Governments will demand that microchips also contain fingerprints and iris scans.

So this is far from secure as a so-called deterrent to terrorists and criminals. 3,000 blank passports were stolen recently in the UK and authorities said don’t worry they can’t be faked – yeah, right. And we know that databases are never 100% secure, so the whole e-passport thing has me pretty freaked. I see no valid reason for handing over our iris scans, fingerprints, and putting out whole identity onto a microchip – when the real reason behind all this is simply to herd us onto a central database that will be shared by Governments around the world.

There are other ways to ensure a passport is genuine. Blogdial has a pretty sensible suggestion:

1. Each passport or ID document contains a cryptographically signed digital portrait of the holder, signed by the passport issuing authority.
2. When your passport is swiped, your picture comes up on the screen, loaded from the passport, and NOT a central database
3. The digital signature of the passport photo is also downloaded.
4. A PGP-like signature check is done against the public key of the national passport issuing authority, which is stored on the keyring of the swiping device.

If the signature is good, the document is genuine. If the signature is bad, the document is a forgery.

This system does several things.

• It decentralizes the management of photo authentication.
• It stops the inevitable abuses of centralized databases.
• Each passport photo is digitally unique. This means that every time that you get your photo taken for your passport, it is a different cryptographically signed number that ends up in your passport. You will never have a unique identifier tied to your identity, even though its your face in every photograph.
• Big brother gets a kick in the balls.
• Passport/ID fraud is basically eliminated, except for the fake ones made to order at the request of MI6 and the like.

I was watching Blue Hawaii yesterday (yep, the 1960s Elvis film) and I had to chuckle when two women met the plane carrying Elvis on it. They rushed onto the tarmac and waited by the steps that were put into position to let the passengers disembark. Other people were waiting behind fences just near the plane. I well remember Sydney airport – my father and I used to go there on Sundays to stand on the roof of the airport building to watch the planes take off and land (he was after all a fighter pilot and this was back in 2000 BC!!).

Can you imagine if you tried to do this today? You’d be hauled off so fast and never seen again.

ThinkingShift is back!

Well, I’m back in Oz and suffering from pretty major jet lag. Any flight over 5 hours tends to knock me out so here I am at 6.15am Saturday morning blogging away. Five weeks away in Europe and I was 50/50 about coming back home. I really loved Italy and Portugal is such a great country too. All a bit too hot for me though so very glad to be back in the colder weather. For my kick-off post, let me tell you about a major hissy fit I nearly had (next post will reveal the airline I consider to be a shocker).

My husband booked our tickets and he knows I refuse to go to the US because of biometric identification at their airports. So he is always vigilant in avoiding any transit through the US. Unfortunately, he forgot about the UK and I wasn’t aware we were coming home via Heathrow until we left Portugal. So here I was on the plane, hurtling towards London having all sorts of visions of me being hauled off by UK immigration because I was going to refuse any form of biometric identification.

So we get to Heathrow and spend the night at an airport hotel. Next morning, check-in with British Airways at the new Terminal 5 and we’re told to go through “security”. I took this to mean immigration but oh no dear reader! Security is something George Orwell would have nightmares about! First though let me say that Terminal 5 from an architectural POV is interesting. As you approach it, its raked steel columns really give the structure coherence. It’s quite impressive. But inside Terminal 5? …ho hum, same old concept. Huge departure halls full of The Brands, with weary passengers walking aimlessly up and down trying to stretch legs. The presence of so many Brands (Links of London, Prada, Tiffany’s and so on) presenting their wares in so many eye-catching shops is enough to do your head in! But I avoided them all. Not a single Brand name item have I bought since I declared myself to be “anti-brand”.

But I digress. So off we trot to “security”. We enter a smallish hallway and there were about 4 desks with passengers lining up. And towering above each desk was….biometric equipment. What really stood out for me was the iris scanning device. I wanted to take a photo to show you but thought better of it. The iris scanner looms up above the security desk on a black arm. At the desk itself is other equipment, presumably fingerprint scanners and cameras. All the equipment is black, imposing and intimidating. I had about 5 other victims, sorry passengers, ahead of me, so I quickly looked around for some signage that would tell me of my rights to refuse biometric identification.

Near one of the desks was a small sign that I rushed up to. I only caught a glimpse of what it said before being told to get back in queue by some gruff security person. All I saw was the phrase “if you refuse, you will be denied…” – didn’t get to read what you’d be denied but guess it would be boarding the aircraft to escape the hell out of the UK!

So I armed myself with various legal arguments that I knew would be ignored. I was practically hyperventilating and had images of me languishing in some UK jail, wishing I’d brought along the contact details for Privacy International! I approached the desk. A pretty stern looking woman, in her 50s, took my boarding pass and passport. I was ready for the next bit – “okay we’re going to do an iris scan and fingerprint you, you will obey”. But no…I was ushered through without a word said to me. I slunk off fast believe me! Then it was the irritating x-ray business. As always, I set off the alert system so I was asked to step aside. What happened next was truly THE most intrusive body search I’ve yet suffered through.

A security person decided my shoes, which had some metal decoration on them, was probably the culprit but said I would still have to be searched ie frisked. He sent me to a woman who I reckon was a former prison guard the way she acted. Every possible part of my person was patted down and I had to show the soles of my feet. Say what I asked? Yep, show them. I was delighted to show her the nastiest pair of soles she’s probably seen in some time – after one month of schlepping the streets of Continental Europe, I was in bad need of a pedicure and foot scrub! I asked her why she needed to see the bottom of my feet. Her reply? “You never know”. Know what I asked? Do you think I have a bomb on my soles? All I got was a very rude stare.

I then slunk off into the supermall for shoppers – the Departure Lounge. I’ve done some quick research into Terminal 5 and the UK biometric system. What I can’t understand is the stupidity of it. Apparently, the biometric system is in place because Terminal 5’s Departure Lounge allows Domestic and International passengers to mingle. So authorities fear that a terrorist, who is an incoming international passenger, could swap tickets with an accomplice booked on a domestic flight. So the biometrics are in place at security and identities are rechecked at departure gates. Hello? Dudes…why have common departure lounges?? Why not separate incoming and outgoing passengers and ditch the imposing biometric equipment that strips any passenger of rights? Speaking of passenger rights: I do wonder if the taking of fingerprints and iris scanning runs counter to the UK Data Protection Act. I have no answer right now but will be looking into it. I simply can’t believe that passengers have no rights to refuse biometrics. And before I hand over my fingerprints or iris scan, I want to know that the UK for example is not going to share my personal information with the US.

Further snooping has revealed something else I want to look into. Apparently, Heathrow Airport and its biometric system is operated by BAA, a Spanish construction company. That’s right: Heathrow is owned by the Spanish who invested £252million in Heathrow and one would suggest would like to recoup some profits. How to boost profits? Well, BAA also owns a chain of Duty Free stores, which by sheer coincidence happen to be at Heathrow and Terminal 5. So if you mingle domestic and international passengers in one huge Departure lounge like Terminal 5, you maximise profits because said passengers spend time shopping.

Even better: you then introduce biometric identification systems, using the excuse that there’s a huge security risk having domestic and international passengers heaped together. BAA’s website says:

‘We are transforming Heathrow to make big improvements for all passengers.Domestic passengers will in future use the same departure lounges as international passengers. That means all our passengers will enjoy the same wide choice of shops and restaurants.”

The cynics amongst us might suggest that BAA is more interested in raking in the cash than it is in safeguarding passengers against supposed terrorist threats. I may not have all this correct yet as I’ve only started looking into it. I was so shocked by what I saw at Terminal 5 ie the biometric equipment, that I wanted to look into it. If you know more, then leave a comment.

It’s more than profits though. It’s about control over you and me in the name of keeping us safe. The majority of us are happy to be shunted through queues having our irises scanned, our photos snapped and our fingerprints taken in the name of perceived security. I, however, am not. Thankfully, I escaped the UK and will never again make the mistake of passing through Heathrow. But seems the world is getting smaller and smaller for me as you face biometrics in the UK, the US, Japan and soon Australia. Antarctica is looking good!

I can see through you

In their never-ending quest to make things difficult for travellers and further invade one’s personal space and privacy, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have installed 3D body scanning devices in 10 airports across America. Now, the good news for the TSA is that these devices see through traveller’s clothing. The bad news for travellers is that intimate body parts are revealed.

Apparently, some lucky, randomly selected travellers were recently hauled aside in L.A., New York, Denver, Baltimore and Albuquerque airports, shoved into glass booths and subjected to a 3D body scan. The scanners emit millimetre waves (who knows what the health implications of this might be) that pierce through clothing to identity plastics, metals, chemicals, explosives and so on.

The real issue IMHO is the intrusiveness of this technology. The security people doing the scanning are in a separate room but can clearly see sexual organs. The traveller’s face is blurred (now there’s a positive). A dude from the American Civil Liberties Union has been quoted as saying: “People have no idea how graphic the images are“. Further, in a statement from the ACLU they point out that “Passengers expect privacy underneath their clothing and should not be required to display highly personal details of their bodies such as evidence of mastectomies, colostomy appliances, penile implants, catheter tubes and the size of their breasts or genitals as a pre-requisite to boarding a plane.” Check out the image accompanying this post to see an example image (shamelessly ganked from the ACLU site).

Now, there’s a whole heap of questions I’d be asking:

• what’s the criteria they’ll be using to haul a traveller off for scanning? Should one of the people doing the scanning spot a nubile blonde with silicon jobs, the cynics amongst might suggest that she could be targetted for a bit of voyeurism on the part of the scanning dudes.
• how are passengers informed that 3D body scanning devices are being used? Do they sign a consent form?
• graphic images are produced, so what safeguard is there that the images won’t be stored, transmitted, shared?
• I’m presuming it’s voluntary (for the moment anyway). What happens if you say no thanks, do you get to board your flight?
• is this security measure simply over the top? Is it a reasonable and balanced necessity when you weigh it against the personal affront to a traveller’s dignity and body? Why on earth use such intrusive measures for routine security screening? In the absence of probable cause, to scan the average traveller is an infringement of privacy expectations. I mean I certainly don’t expect that when I’m going to an airport to catch a flight that my body parts are going to be flashed onto screens with men (most likely men I’d say) seeing the image! I am fine with the usual “bomb testing” I seem to get hauled aside for. I am fine with the tedious x-ray stuff that goes on even though I think this is all intrusive. But I am not fine with body scanning, that’s a step too far.

Sure, you’re probably saying: “well, who cares? If you have nothing to hide and your face is hidden, then what’s the problem?”. I am so sick of hearing this pathetic excuse. We should all care. It’s not about demonstrating that you’re innocent and have nothing to hide. It’s about being concerned that there’s a redrawing of the boundaries between public and private – and private space is shrinking. The State is increasing its invasiveness into our lives and there will come a time when it’s too late to take back our civil liberties because, like sheep, we will have given them up. Every time we whinge “I have nothing to hide, so what’s the issue?”, we are being submissive sheep. Since 9/11, the ever-increasing climate of fear that has been whipped up by the US Government (and the UK and Australia) has given them carte blanche to interfere, snoop and pry. And we don’t seem to be pushing back. We seem to be taking it on the chin, punch after punch. And now body blow!

I like the way the ACLU counters the TSA’s defence that they are protecting privacy by blurring the person’s face and having images viewed in a separate room: “These protections are the technological equivalent of making passengers parade naked through a separate room with a bag on their head. Passengers should not, and never would, tolerate that.”

Yeah well, I’ve said many times on this blog that I will not go to the US because of their biometric scanning. So I just add body scanning to the list of why I won’t go. How long before airports around the world decide body scanning is a fab idea. And I therefore will not be travelling beyond Newcastle, Australia!!

Image credit: ACLU

Prove who you are!

Leading up to Christmas, there’s a lot of privacy reports and privacy related news. I’ll try to bring as much as I can to you before we totter off into the greatest display of contemporary society’s obsession with materialistic goods – the Christmas shopping and gift giving period.

But let’s start off with the Department of Invasion into Your Personal Life, sorry, I mean Department of Homeland Security. DHS has decided that whacking two of your fingers into ink to obtain fingerprints isn’t enough. Nope. The DHS is now collecting scans of 10 fingerprints from foreign travellers entering the US at Dulles International Airport. The 10-print system will extend to all other airports in the US in 2008 through which foreigners can enter the US. The DHS is very proud of its biometric technology:

“We rely on biometrics, unique physical characteristics like fingerprints, to keep dangerous people out of the United States and at the same time to keep the lines moving so that travel is fast and convenient for legitimate citizens and visitors“.

Mmmm…perhaps they should do some research because it’s pretty well known there are major flaws in biometric technology, particularly when it comes to fingerprint scans. Nine out of ten commercial scanners can be “tricked” by fake fingers for example.

Astutely, the DHS realises that the 10-point scanning system might be a barrier to entry. To overcome this, they might want to come up with a smart advertising campaign to lure us to visit the US. Here’s a great campaign they could use.

Similar stupidity is displayed by DHS’s escalated attempts to get you to prove who you are. A Delaware Online journal article brings us news of two instances where domestic US citizens had to go through hoops to prove their identity. There’s a small fishing village in the Florida panhandle. There are only a few hundred residents and there’s no postal service. Everyone has a post office box and the postmistress knows everyone by name (shock, gasp: you mean the feeling of being in a community still exists??). But the DHS seems to think these people are a pretty suspicious bunch because they’ve all received letters from the DHS saying they have to comply with DHS regulations and identify themselves within 10 days.

The DHS will not accept social security cards or birth certificates as forms of identification. What the?? Are we now living in a world where a birth certificate is no longer a valid form of ID?? The hapless Florida residents have to cough up two forms of ID and they are also required to provide a list of anyone who might receive mail in that post office box and supply identification for them as well. Hello?? Intrusion and snooping into people’s private lives DHS!!

I’m not sure how much more absurd this whole US national security thing can get. Any expectations of privacy that US citizens (and increasingly the rest of us) may have are going down the gurgler as the DHS and US Government seek to track and control. Not only will people (like me) refuse to step foot in the US; the US runs the high risk of becoming increasingly isolated.

Fortress European Union

Mmmmm…..well maybe I was a bit hasty with my Fortress Britain post when I said that the UK was fast becoming a police state, surveillance society, fortress – take your pick. Because like a seasoned galloper in a horse race, the European Union (EU) has burst forth with its own plans to become a locked-down space.

The EU has just unveiled new measures that could make Gordon Brown jealous. Draft laws propose that use of the internet be criminalised if used to incite or recruit for acts of terrorism and passenger lists for airlines flying into or out of the EU will have to be coughed up by the airlines. And…passenger list data will be stored for 13 years (13? why 13 – is this some magical number?).

Apparently, the European Commissioner for Justice and Security thinks the internet is a pretty suspicious place because it breeds international terrorists. Hello! There were “terrorists” way before the internet. I’m sure the British would say that the IRA and their campaigns in England in the 1970s might have fallen into the category of “terrorist activity”. And the Commish says that: “Those telling others how to commit acts of destruction – with a clear terrorist intention – should be put behind bars. Be it on the internet or print“. Now, I wouldn’t for one hop onto a plane brandishing a manual in Arabic on how to fly a plane, but Mr Commish might have forgotten that there are many, many books published over the years that have never managed to get their authors thrown into jail. For example, I read Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey way back in the early 1990s. Check out the illustrated front cover of the book here on Amazon – it is a man’s hand holding several sticks of dynamite. I remember really liking this novel about George Washington Hayduke III (who nearly carked it in an earlier novel). He runs around blowing up bridges or anything that ruins the pristine beauty of a landscape filled with deep canyons and sprawling deserts. In other words, Hayduke is an environmental activist using violent means to protect nature. Last time I heard, Abbey (who died I think in the mid-90s) didn’t get hauled off to jail for inciting environmental terrorism.

Clearly, reading the “wrong thing” in public from some “forbidden library” of books might land you in trouble these days. US airport screeners pounced on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s co-founder, John Gilmore, recently because he was reading a book entitled “Drugs and Your Rights”. And here is the book he was reading – part of a Cambridge University series in studies in philosophy and public policy. John Gilmore is a civil libertarian not some dangerous drug smuggler.

As Gilmore says: ” The Gestapo cared what works of philosophy you were reading. So did the Stasi. Those of you who live in free countries may find it a bit hard to understand why any populace wouldn’t tear to bits any bureaucrats that would take away the fundamental right to read whatever you like without it being used to determine how your government treats you as you cross borders or travel within your own country“.

Instead of hauling hapless travellers aside because their book might look suspicious, it might be a better use of time if officials considered the plight of individuals who are persecuted because of the writings they produce or circulate. Two prominent Egyptian bloggers for example, Abdul Karim Nabeil Suleiman and Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, have been arrested over their blogging activities or writings.

And if you don’t think that you could get a visit from the FBI or ASIO (Australia) because of what you’re seen to be reading in public – check out this article on Creative Loafing.

Back to the EU: just like the UK, the EU will collect information about you such as name, passport number, address, credit card details, email address and phone numbers. And in the most sensible observation I’ve seen in awhile, Syed Kamall, a Conservative MEP stated: “This is just another extension of the surveillance society being built across Europe. If we continue to remove people’s basic liberties in this way, the terrorists will have won“.

Fortress Britain

Fortress Britain is an apt title – UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has just unveilled (wait for it) new border control security plans that would require hapless travellers passing through electronic check points to cough up to 90 (yep, that’s right 90) pieces of information. This would include information like credit card details, travel plans, email addresses, contact phone numbers and the like.

So….the idea as far as I can tell is that when you book your ticket with the travel agent, the agent would be collecting all this sort of information, which is then accessible by police, customs and immigration officials. Sorry, but I’m not comfortable with a whole lot of dudes knowing my credit card details. If you decide that this is all too much and opt for rail travel around the UK instead – forget it, you’ll still be subject to increased passenger screening at railway stations.

Brown is clearly making a fortress out of the UK. He’s announced plans to redesign buildings that could be terrorist targets making them “blast resistant”. And this is what it might be like to get into a public building in the future – external security checkpoint, vehicle exclusion zone, barriers made from concrete and the like.

And the new UK Border Agency will be given new powers of arrest and biometric visas (including fingerprint technology) will be introduced for all foreign citizens needing visas. At the moment, UK officials can hold a suspected “terrorist” for 28 days without charge (double the previous 14 days), but the Government is seeking to extend this period.

Now, this new UK Border Agency interests me. It’s a single agency passenger screening system uniting customs, immigration and visa procedures and consisting of 25,000 staff. From what I’ve read, Trusted Borders, a consortium of technology and service providers, will provide the technology for the passenger screening system, which will be based on fingerprint visas. So before you even enter the UK, the system will have screened passengers against immigration, customs and various watch lists. Apparently, staff from immigration, customs and visa agencies are being transferred into this new agency and with only 3 hours training or less are expected to be proficient at passenger profiling.

And if you go off and read Brown’s statement on national security you can get a sense of the mind-set. Brown refers to “the measures we are taking at home to root out terrorism and strengthen the resilience of communities to resist extremist influences..” and more policing and intelligence to “win hearts and minds“. And from now until 2011, Brown has pledged “an additional £240 million will finance counter-terrorism policing, which is focused as much on preventing the next generation of terrorists as on pursuing current targets“.

Hearts and minds will be won by waging a battle. Brown envisages “..a generational challenge that requires sustained work over the long term, through a range of actions in schools, colleges, universities, faith groups and youth clubs, by engaging young people through the media, culture, sport and arts, and by acting against extremist influences operating on the internet and in institutions from prisons and universities to some places of worship“. And he hints that the “governance” of mosques, which have existed in the UK for over 100 years, will be “strengthened”. And a new forum of head teachers from schools would be established to find ways to protect pupils from extremist propaganda.

Now, I think we need to give a cautious welcome to this crackdown. I’m not saying terrorists don’t exist. But there are two models of struggle. The first is the violent extremist model and if you meet this with defensive measures, it goes a long way to feeding into this extremist model by potentially escalating violent extremist efforts to overcome any “anti-terrorist” measures. And security measures that could be construed as “anti-Muslim” by Muslim communities or other ethnic groups could engender more hatred and violence, leading to the UK becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.

The other model is surely non-violent responses to terrorism. By understanding typologies of violence, sources of conflict, by differentiating between nonviolent Islam and Islamic Terrorism, understanding the grievances of people and knowing how discontent can be exploited and turned into hatred, refusing to support countries that don’t promote democracy or human rights – surely these responses would start to attack the roots of terrorism rather than erecting e-borders and increasing surveillance of citizens in the hope that terrorists will be flushed out.

The UK is fast becoming a no travel zone for me. It’s becoming travel terror. And if you look or act “different” – watch out.

Source: image credit BBC News, Washington Post, KableNet