If you're a noncitizen and have entered or re-entered Japan in the last couple of years, you've undoubtedly been invited to participate in the wonderful, fun-filled world of biometrics. It's safe to say that many of you felt as though you were being treated like criminals — not to mention the humiliation of being discriminated against, knowing that your Japanese companions could quickly walk through immigration without having to endure the same indignities.

Worse still is the fact that the foreign community of Japan worked so long and hard to finally get fingerprinting abolished — only to see it reinstated just a few years later due to pressure from the U.S. government. And, let's not forget the frosting that gives this cake its real zest: the added discomfort of knowing our fingerprints will be kept in a database indefinitely.

Then, along came the debate in the Diet about foreigners' suffrage, and we actually started to get the impression that the Japanese government had some trust in us (that is, until our beloved former posts minister, Shizuka Kamei, torpedoed the idea). Around that time I began to think, "Well, if we can be trusted with the vote, perhaps we can be trusted not to be fingerprinted and photographed upon re-entry into the country." So, in February of this year I submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Justice suggesting that "regular" permanent residents, like "special" permanent residents, be exempted from having their photos and fingerprints taken at ports of entry.