For millions of travelers who visit foreign countries, it's not
just their passports, but theirfingerprints, that
they need to hand over at the border.
Because fingerprints are unique to each individual, fingerprint
scanning at airports and other ports of entry helps
security officials quickly identify criminals, terrorists,
immigration violators and others. While not foolproof, for some
countries, the system is the first line of defense against enemies
of the state and other unwanted visitors.
But, earlier this month, Japanese officials arrested a Chinese
woman who took a particularly extreme measure to evade detection.
She paid a plastic surgeon to surgically alter her fingerprints.
Lin Rong, 27, was originally arrested Dec. 5 for faking a marriage
license after she'd already entered the country, Japanese officials
said. That' s when police saw scars on her hands and realized that
she might have been guilty of more.
"During the course of the investigation, police found that she
passed through the checkpoint using fake fingerprints," said
Nobuyuki Kawai, director of the International Crime Office of
Japan's National Police Agency.
Although local reports said she paid about $15,000 for thefingerprint transplant
surgery, Kawai said Rong told officers she paid roughly $1,500 for
the procedure that swapped fingerprints from her right and left
hands.He said Rong had previously been deported but sneaked back
into the country to work in a restaurant or a bar.
Patches of skin from her thumbs and index fingers were reportedly
removed and then grafted on to the ends of fingers on the opposite
hand. As a result, Rong's identity was not detected when she
re-entered Japan illegally.
Since Japan started checking the fingerprints of foreign visitors
in 2007, Kawai said, immigration officials have caught eight other
people who tried to alter their fingerprints through various
techniques.
But, he said, this was the first time officials had identified an
illegal immigrant who used surgery to fake fingerprints.
"This is the first case," Kawai said. "But please keep in mind that
we don't know if there are any other cases. You never know unless
you catch the person."
"We are sure they are trying to be more careful at border control,"
he said. "So we hope we can prevent similar cases in the
future."Rong, who is still in custody, could either serve time in a
prison or be immediately deported, he said. And Kawai added that
the immigration department is tightening security at airport
checkpoints.
But should this example raise a warning flag for the United States
and other countries that use fingerprint scanning and other
biometric security systems? Although Rong's method of deception was
especially drastic, she was not the first to figure out how to fool
a fingerprint scanner.
The silicon covering foiled the scanning device and didn't alert
officials that she had been deported in 2007 for overstaying and
was barred from re-entry for five years. Immigration officials
later found her inside the country.In January of this year, it was
reported that a South Korean woman blocked from entering Japan
apparently slipped past the screening system by placing
special tape over her fingerprints.
Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and author, said he was
familiar with techniques that could defeat fingerprint scanners in
the lab, but was surprised to hear that someone had actually
succeeded at the airport.
"I'm not surprised that it's possible but that someone did it," he
said. "The real-time, high-stress environment of an immigration
line is a little different."
Criminals have tried for decades to fool fingerprint scanners, he
said, but what works in an isolated context doesn't necessarily
work in the real world.
"It's not just defeating the technology," he said. "You need to
defeat the social system around it."
Although officials with the Department of Homeland Security
declined to speak on the record, they told ABCNews.com that
immigration officers at airport checkpoints are trained to detect
and thwart techniques biometric fraudsters might use.
"What happens because of the way our system works, the officers are
right there when the fingers are scanned," one DHS official said.
"If any question comes up, they can look at the person's hand."They
also said that as opposed to Japan's fingerprint scanner, which
only scans two fingers, scanners at U.S. airports scan up to 10
fingers of foreign visitors.
At any one time, about 5 million people are on the country's
biometric watch list, for crimes, drug offenses, immigration
violations and other reasons, a DHS official said.
Although they couldn't disclose a precise number, the officials
said that since the U.S. implemented its fingerprint scanning
system in 2004, several people had attempted to evade detection
through various kinds of fingerprint alteration and mutilation.
Some attempted deliberate scarring, others used acid to burn their
fingers.
A few years ago, they said, someone attempted to graft skin from
their toes onto their fingers. But because the wounds had not yet
healed, the officer noticed the cuts and denied the person
entry.
The officials said they had not seen an increase in the number of
fingerprint modification cases and emphasized that Rong's success
would not have been possible here.
"We're on the lookout for it and officers are trained to look for
this kind of alteration," one official said. "We would be able to
detect this kind of thing and prevent it from happening."