Human rights voice heeded: no fingerprints from foreign nationals

On 16 April this year the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union issued an open appeal to the President asking him to veto the amendments to the Law “On the legal status of foreign nationals and stateless persons”. The amendments would have introduced collection by all Ukrainian consulates, border guards, etc, of biometric data.

The concerns expressed focused on likely abuse and lack of guarantees of data protection, unwarranted huge expense and absolutely no benefit in terms of increased national security which was supposed to be the aim of the amendments. The arguments can be read in full here: http://helsinki.org.ua/en/index.php?id=1239888387

On 8 May President Yushchenko used his power of veto against the bill, and on Thursday 11 June supporters of the amendments failed to get enough support in the Verkhovna Rada to overturn this veto.