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Airlines to US: Please Don't Make Us Fingerprint Foreigners

Could conditions get any tougher for the airline industry? Possibly, if the US government has its way. Travel industry executives and governments around the world are pushing back against a plan to require airlines and cruise lines to collect fingerprints from all foreign passengers exiting the country.

According to the Washington Post, airline reps complain that the move represents the government's attempt to "outsource" the responsibilities and costs associated with border control, setting a dangerous precedent of personal data being controlled by private companies.

But beyond those noble moral reasons, they fear the move, if approved, would cost them nearly $9 billion more than Department of Homeland Security estimates, creating one more financial drain on an industry battered by high fuel prices and cutthroat competition. For its part, the DHS, under pressure from all sides to tighten porous borders, says it's just following the directives set out by Congress last year to collect the data by July 2009.

We're not sure where we fall on the freedom-security continuum, but we do wonder what crazy marketing scheme might result from Carnival Cruise Lines having our digits in its database.

Related Stories:
· Plan to Fingerprint Foreigners Exiting US Is Opposed [Washington Post]
· Airport Security coverage [Jaunted]