Finger Printing

[al_renko]

Hi all,
Please can someone explain the following " Fingerprints will continue to be transferred to new flight training requests only if you use the same account (pin) number that was used for the initial flight training request."

[Rhino25782]

Let's say your question relates to the TSA fingerprinting for flight training in the US.

If at any case in the future, you issue a second (or third, or fourth...) training request (for whatever reason you might do that. Maybe you had to cancel your original plans due to illness or so), you need to use your existing login credentials in order to be able to use your existing fingerprints.

If you sign up with a new account, you will need to obtain (and pay for) new fingerprints.

Seems pretty obvious to me, to be honest. ;-)

[al_renko]

If you sign up with a new account, you will need to obtain (and pay for) new fingerprints.

"sign up with a new account" I disagree,that is far from clear,what do they mean by new account? Why would you want to create a new account?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Anyone wants my fingerprints, I don't go there. There are plenty of countries I haven't visited that aren't police states.

[Mike Cross]

Well mine get checked at immigration every time.

Fingerprints are a simple way of verifying identity, as are iris checking and facial biometrics. For some reason we don't object hugely to the last two although we do seem to do so for the first, even though they all perform the same function.

UKBA are dropping iris checking and I'm convinced the biometric gates only let me through when the person on the desk hits the button, yet the US, who went for fingerprint recognition years ago has a system that works well. OTOH we have one that works less well. Of late I've been getting through faster in the US and suspect that's because the sytem recognises me.

Mind you there was this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-21756709), but I think I'd get spotted trying it!

[patowalker]

There are plenty of countries I haven't visited that aren't police states.

Have you never been to France, Austria, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Spain, etc.? All their citizens have national ID cards, for which they had fingerprints taken.

What is the difference between a photograph of a face and a photograph of a fingertip?

[Rhino25782]

"sign up with a new account" I disagree,that is far from clear,what do they mean by new account? Why would you want to create a new account?

I imagine any online service with a user self registration feature has tons of duplicate accounts in their database. People not remembering their credentials and signing up again, etc...

The way I read the sentence above is that you shouldn't do that if you want to use your existing fingerprints which are linked to an existing account.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Have you never been to France ...
Yes. And I got arrested for going shopping without my passport, because I refuse to pander to police states.

It's not a problem any more, as I don't go there since Rainbow Warrior.

And if the UK ID cards hadn't been scrapped I'd have been one of millions of refusniks.

[patowalker]

But you haven't answered my question: In civil liberties terms, what is the difference between the authorities filing a picture of your face and filing a picture of your fingertip?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I accept that from time to time I have to give evidence as to who I am. Sometimes this consists of walking past someone who can see my face, sometimes it consists of me saying who I am and them believing me, sometimes it consists of me presenting a business card or invitiation (with no photo on it) (and this even works for some royal events), for getting into commercial aeroplanes (and, OK, Buck House garden parties) I need to show a passport.

All of which I consider proportionate. I do not consider giving anyone my fingerprints proportionate - fingerprinting is what is done to criminals.

(Having said which I was fingerprinted on arrival in Japan. It was that or turn down a trip which was mostly paid for by someone else.)

[patowalker]

Many people associate fingerprinting with criminals, but times have changed. Optical fingerprint recognition technology is becoming commonplace and will eventually be a feature of ePassports, so anybody wanting to travel will have to accept it.

[FlyingFinancier]

I think the difference is that iris / facial recognition merely proves who you are at a particular point (much like a passport) whereas fingerprinting could help a not-well-intentioned state more easily trail where you have been. Obviously the explosion of instrusive state surveillance on everyone makes the latter point less relevant but perhaps not irrelevant.

[Mike Cross]

Fingerprints only prove where you were if you leave them behind. We don't wear gloves, refuse to use phones, credit cards or the Internet or drove a car or wear hoodies to avoid CCTV (ok some may) for that reason. Nor do we refuse to have our hair cut, use cutlery, cups or have a glass of beer in case we leave some DNA. Nor do we argue against our dental or medical records being kept so why be paranoid about fingerprints?

My guess is it's just the association with criminality.

[FlyingFinancier]

I think it's the same point - you could indeed track people by DNA if there were a general DNA database, but a lot of people object to that in the same way as they object to finger-printing. Generally only convicted criminals lose control of either of those markers, the only common exception is where people have committed no offence beyond travelling to another state. Many Western states have a long way to go to demonstrate that their systematic surveillance of citizens is proportionate and adequately controlled by law.

I take your point, that objecting to this sort of surveillance is really pi$$ing in the wind of technological reality, but some people may choose not to make it any easier for Big Brother (be that the State, Google, Visa , TelCos or all together) than is really necessary.

[Mike Cross]

There isn't a general anything database. I appreciate that people have concerns but the reality is that monitoring and surveillance is extremely labour intensive. If everyone in the world was monitoring a single other person the monitoring would never be complete and we'd die out as a race because no-one would be producing what we need to survive.

Police States don't need big databases to be opressive.

Society is safer because it makes people bear responsibility for their actions, the prospect of being caught deters people. One of the reasons we're made to carry an identification visible to anyone on our motor cars. Traditionally the crossing of international borders has been a place where identification has been necessary. However that's not the original purpose. I far preferred the "requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty" wording, showing the original intent which was "don't mess with him or you'll have me to answer to".

[patowalker]

Police States don't need big databases to be opressive.

Quite right. They use electrodes to obtain names, not fingerprints.

[S-Works]

My phone has my fingerprints.....