The EU’s newest Orwellian proposal to require tourists’ biometric data at its borders should make you prepare for unnecessary upheaval and travel interruption if you’re intending to escape to a chateau next summer. Fingerprints and pictures will be taken of any Brits crossing the Channel first. The development of a so-called “Smart Border” is reflected in the new massive data-collection program, which will go live in May.
But the proposals are not in any way “clever.” In order to better identify risky travelers, identify vulnerable individuals, and decrease fraud, the data collection has been justified; yet, the cost to liberty and logistics is astronomical. Civil society organizations have correctly criticized the border measures as “disproportionate and unneeded,” and the manager of the Port of Dover has issued a warning about “severe and ongoing disruption for a very long period.”
All travelers above the age of 12 will be required to register using their biometrics, creating an EU datastore that will include the unique personal information of hundreds of millions of people. In addition to a set of four fingerprints in the US format, the EU also wants face photos. The personal information of vacationers will someday be merged with billions of data points, including images, palm prints, DNA records, and face biometrics, to which dubious recognition algorithms may be applied. The effort to collect biometric information here could be the largest in European history. What could possible go wrong?
Over 1.7 billion EU Digital Covid Certificates were issued during the pandemic, but even those who are losing love with liberté must be concerned about the catastrophic effects on travel and transportation. Too many of our European friends have an indifferent attitude toward the emergence of a data-hungry superstate. The EU border inspections, which would resemble Big Brother, are predicted to take seven times as long as they do now, and the traffic jam at Dover might lengthen by 19 miles, or approximately the length of the Channel crossing.
Ironically, but not wholly unexpectedly, the Schengen Area, which is intended to be characterized by freedom of movement, is turning into a digital fortress. On the ostensibly impartial pretext of development, authorities are embracing radical technology, but this is not just a process of modernization—it is a process of political transformation.
We run the risk of moving closer to a dystopian future that is modeled after China’s techno-totalitarianism. The biometric super-database is not the only troubling technology advancement on European borders; in 2019, the EU tested AI “lying detectors” a la Minority Report that scan passengers’ faces as part of the extremely contentious and shaky iBorderCtrl system.
According to a speech by the new Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley last week, police are also deploying live facial recognition cameras and mobile fingerprinting devices in the UK. They are also reportedly using predictive analytics to identify men who may in the future assault women and finding “precriminal” online activity. However, he made no mention of the many rape and domestic abuse complaints that go uninvestigated and are seldom brought to justice each year.
The technology revolution is eroding the distinctively European principles of liberty, the right to privacy, and the presumption of innocence. The chief of GCHQ issued a warning last week on China’s use of technology for political control and its “draconian” emergence of a “surveillance culture.” But before we can criticize China with any credibility, we must demonstrate innovation in how we use technology to advance and defend our own liberties.
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