I would have posted this in the SLF forum, but I imagine it will affect crews visiting/based in NZ as well.
An immigration bill, now in front of a parliamentary select committee, would give border control officers the right to collect and store fingerprints and iris scans from non-citizens, and to use instant biometric checks at the border to ensure New Zealanders re-entering the country were not travelling on forged documents.
Is it just me, or does this stink of americanisation, and unnecessary checks? The current system in NZ is not broken, so why are we fixing it?
Particularly because tourism in NZ is one of our major earners, would this not scare tourists away? I know of several people who now refuse to travel to the USA due to the fingerprint requirements, I'm sure they are not isolated, and this occurs in many cases.
Did I miss something or are we the 51st state already?
Original article:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4326391a28.html