Foreigners visiting Korea that plan to stay for more than 91 days will be required to register their ten fingerprints and a facial scan upon entry to the country, according to a Korea Herald article.
The new program, which is a result of immigration legislation that passed Korea’s National Assembly in April 2010, will also require more than a million foreigners already residing in the country to register their biometrics by January 2012.
In addition to be utilized for immigration purposes, the Korean government also expects to bring the biometric system into law enforcement and government programs helping with management of criminal cases and social security.
While some have expressed worries about the program leading to racial profiling as it has in some of the other countries utilizing similar systems for immigration, Korean officials are much more interested in the potential positive effects such as Japan had with a 35% reduction in crimes committed by foreigners and the arrest of 33,000 foreign criminals in the United States.
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