TOKYO — The kind of greeting a foreigner receives at immigration upon arrival at an international airport can be a good, if imperfect, indication of the country that waits on the other side of the barrier.
London's Heathrow? Long queues and lousy service.
New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International? Crumbling infrastructure and over-the-top bureaucracy.
Some Middle Eastern airports? Slow-moving lines that can be circumvented with the right connections and cash.
Now the Japanese government has created new immigration procedures for foreign visitors -- rules that critics say are all too revealing about official attitudes toward foreigners.
On Nov. 20, Japan will begin fingerprinting and photographing non-Japanese travelers as they pass through immigration at air and sea ports. The government says the controls are a necessary security measure aimed at preventing a terrorist attack in Japan.
The new system is modeled on the U.S. program instituted in 2004 that takes digital photos and fingerprints of travelers entering the United States on visas. But the Japanese system goes further by requiring foreign residents -- in addition to visitors -- to be photographed and fingerprinted.
There are exceptions: diplomats, children younger than 16, U.S. military personnel serving in Japan, and long-term residents of Korean or Chinese descent whose presence here is largely owed to Imperial Japan's overseas conquests. But all other foreigners will be scanned each time upon entry.
Critics say the data collection is a dubious terrorism-fighting measure, instead reflecting the government's desire for closer surveillance of foreigners.
"The Japanese government has a long history of not wanting long-term foreign residents, and they really feel they need more control over foreigners," said Sonoko Kawakami of the Japanese chapter of Amnesty International. "The government just wants to gather as much information as possible on people."
The only terrorist spectaculars in Japanese history have come from homegrown groups: the Japanese Red Army, which conducted attacks around the world in the 1970s and '80s, and the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which carried out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.
But officials say Tokyo's support for the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan makes Japan a target, and taking biometric data such as fingerprints and digital facial photos is the only way to nab terrorists traveling on fake passports.
