Fingerprints and Photos in Japan
 

:mad: Saw a note in the crew van that starting this week, I believe November 20th, crews get the pleasure of getting "fingerprinted" and "photographed" on all inbound flights into Japan. The Ops agent confirmed this. It just keeps getting better!

The U.S. immigration does this to everybody else that comes here. It is only fair.

we started it after 9.11

I think he/she's talking about a photo-op session each time you enter the country. Sort of like what Brazil did for a while (not sure if they still do) to all American passenger coming into Brazil as a "retribution" for what the Brazilians felt was a discriminatory immigration procedures when they would come into the US (I think many if not most Brazilians would be photographed upon arrival into the US).

well the equipment was there but the were not using it on the 19th....

All the posters in the NRT Immigration area say the program was scheduled to start on the 20th. All the equipment has been in place for about a month - this will affect everyone, not just crews.

I just went through the procedure and it was relatively painless. The camera and fingerprint doofer is setup on a small swivel base contraption. The camera is fixed for a height around 5' so you get to bob and weave until your image shows up in a mirror at the same time you have both index fingers on the lighted pads. Could pass for a field sobriety test.