Why are physical passports necessary in 2020? Why isn’t there an optional system in place which uses fingerprints?
In: Technology
Fingerprints are actually pretty terrible for identification. They’re easily spoofed ( [https://www.wired.com/story/cheap-3d-printer-trick-smartphone-fingerprint-locks/](https://www.wired.com/story/cheap-3d-printer-trick-smartphone-fingerprint-locks/) ) and if someone does get a copy of your fingerprints, what do you do? You can’t reset them, like you can a password. They are compromised forever.
And do you really want China or Saudi Arabia to have a copy of your fingerprints?
“Something you have, something you are, something you know — pick two.”
You need at least two factors for any decent security scheme. Fingerprints or facial recognition alone are not enough.
And it needs to be something that works just as well at the Congolese border as it does at LAX.
Every country in the world runs their own passport and custom systems differently butgenerally interchangeably. This means that countries like Germany that could afford to use fingerprints only have to have passport technology which is compatible with Somalia and technically even North Korea. Not every country has the resources or infrastructure to run fingerprints in a large international database.
Countries also do not trust each other. Could you imagine countries like Iran handing over all of its passport fingerprint information over to Israel or vice versa? Some of this institutional mistrust over a central database is not misplaced, since it would be likely that someone in some country might sell the database off and comprise the whole thing.
Passports also have a practical purpose once inside a country. If you are stopped by police it is unlikely that they will be able to use your local id card such as a drivers license to identify you. This is because they do not have access to the foreign database where you are from.
A passport is sort of like a extended physical ID for international travel that can be verified just using eyes. Fingerprints can’t be verified just using eyes. A fingerprint only system would require police officers to either take you back to the station or have a usable fingerprint reader on them. This assumes that they even use digital fingerprinting scanners. This is not limited to third world countries. Where i live in Canada, they still use ink fingerprinting at the police station. It also assumes that they have internet access and database access to use your fingerprints. The same thing also is true for booking hotels or verifying id for buying booze or cigarettes. People do not like your foreign id cards in other countries since they do not operate with their scanners and they frequently have never seen one before.
This is also problematic when in foreign regions or remote areas such as when hiking or in small villages. Imagine trying to use a fingerprint reader in the middle of the Himalayas or the Amazon jungle. The officer reading the fingerprint would need to bring the reader to a remote location and either have database access or the whole database on the reader. This would cost a lot of money.
Not being able to verify the passport on the spot creates issues for visas. Many countries, like Russia have visa requirements where you can only go to certain parts of the country or need special permission to be in some regions. Having a physical visa allows officials to casually check where you are supposed to be in the country easily without the need for high tech solutions. Ditto for expired or invalid visas.
Because there is no world database of fingerprints. Unless you are a criminal, or work for certain parts of the government, your own country probably doesn’t even have your fingerprints.
Hong Kong does have an internal system that all but eliminates use of passports. Each HK permanent resident has an id card and their fingerprints are on file. When they go through immigration at the airport, there is an automated system where they put their id card in a slot, place their thumb on a fingerprint scanner, and leave. The whole process takes about one minute, which is one reason that the HK airport is so efficient. However, for all the other reasons listed in this thread, this system only works for entering Hong Kong, not entering other countries as a person from Hong Kong, and still requires id in addition to fingerprints.
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