YeinJee's Asian Journal

Japan’s airport biometric security system was embarrassed by a news last week that a South Korean woman has successfully passed through its fingerprint reading machine by using a special tape.

The woman was deported in 2007 for overstaying and barred from re-entering Japan for five years. She was however found in August 2008 to have re-entered the country using a fake passport and special tapes which altered her fingerprints to pass through the fingerprint reader.

Japanese airports began (in Nov 2007) fingerprinting and photographing all foreigners aged 16+ upon their entry as a security measure to scan for terrorists, criminals or deportees. A few other countries, including South Korea, are planning to implement similar system in near future… they might want to think twice now.