We are going in the wrong direction.
Biometrics are fine
Most countries in the world now have biometric passports. Biometrics are limited to a digital copy of your face, and they have been used for years to move people across borders securely. Many countries, such as the EU, the UK, and Brazil, exclusively use this method for all of their citizens. The UK even uses this for EU, US, Canadian, and other citizens. You don’t have to pre-enroll. It just works. It means faster borders for everyone so customs agents can focus on actual threats.
I watch British media frequently, and I have NEVER seen an article about how using facial recognition at the UK border has been insufficient to move people across the border quickly and securely. I believe this is the maximum level of necessary security between low-corruption democracies.
However, most countries are going in the wrong direction. The new entry/exit system the European Union is implementing will fingerprint every passenger entering and exiting the European Union in the foreseeable future. It’s not simply a retaliatory action against the United States that does this, but they will do this for all passengers who are not citizens of the EU or Schengen.
I was unaware that the current system was insecure because despite frequently reading news articles from across Europe, I have never once seen a single article discussing how the existing system has let terrorists through. The reason is, it is a solution in search of a problem.
Visa-free Travel is Ending
The future of borders is a world without visa-free travel if the current trajectory continues. Not only do we continue to share criminal records with partners, which is reasonable, but you won’t be able to travel anywhere without getting a visa first. It might be inexpensive, but any document that you need to purchase before traveling and costs money is a visa.
Is the sharing of criminal records insufficient? What is the real benefit of this new system?
All of these are so necessary that they have been delaying the implementation of ETIAS for years now.
Why though? I think it is because the European Union had an election last month. They were likely hoping the new visa system would be put into place after the right-wing lost, but they were unfortunately reelected, so they will rightfully receive the blame once it is in place.
Face recognition at an eGate is enough security to prevent felons from crossing borders. There is no reason to make travel a hassle for the rest of us. Fingerprints are unnecessary since we share criminal records through INTERPOL and face recognition works. We have already prevented criminals from crossing the border, assuming people like Colin Powell are not in charge of the State Department.
If there is no security benefit to such a system, why?
Assault on Freedom
I believe the real reason is to slowly reduce liberties worldwide. We have been eradicating privacy through warrantless surveillance since the 1970s. Increase police budgets. Increase border security with new border guards. But the goal was never simply to crack down on criminals, and mass surveillance is no more helpful to catching terrorists than limited constitutional searches targeting who, what, and where will be searched.
Once privacy is gone, they will move forward with making travel more complex, so fewer people bother with the hassle of more paperwork and more fees when the cost of a flight is already expensive enough—death by bureaucracy.
I do not believe it is simply about corruption, with private companies making loads of money from such a system. There are far more effective ways to defraud your government, namely through the military-industrial complex. But mobsters will do whatever they can to become rich from no work. Legal corruption is their modern strategy.
Once travel is significantly restricted and fewer people travel, they can limit civil liberties further. That is the only political motive I can see for such systems.
How to Reverse Course
The first thing to reverse course is to return to an era of visa-free travel. The only way to do this is to vote. Vote for the most progressive politicians you can and tell politicians we want to, at minimum, go back to the era of visa-free travel. This would still have border guards despite the existence of biometric passports, but at least it wouldn’t continue the decline.
So, first and foremost, support true visa-free travel for citizens of NATO to start.
Once we return to an era of actual visa-free travel, we can also push for using eGates at our airports to increase security and speed up customs for travelers. Our passports have all the information to allow low-risk travelers to speed through customs securely while higher-risk travelers get adequately vetted. The UK already does this process correctly, and terrorist attacks in the UK are no more common than in any other democracy. They are extraordinarily rare. Such a system is what we should aim for as a minimum.
Once we are at the point where customs between NATO members and other low-risk countries is done through eGates, speeding up customs for everyone, we can then talk about extending open border regimes like Schengen to include the UK, Ireland, Canada, and the United States.
But we first need to stop this downward slide towards more travel restrictions.