Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 49ICAO RequirementsWhen the issue of biometric passports passed to the ICAO, the biometrics policy movedfar beyond the Visa Waiver Program countries. As the international standard-setter forpassports, the ICAO had begun research into biometric passports in 1995. During thesubsequent decade, the performance of some biometric technologies has improvedsufficiently to make facial recognition, fingerprints and iris scans contenders forimplementation in passports standards.The technical working group assessing these technologies includes representation fromAustralia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand,Netherlands, Russian Federation, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States. Theprimary purposes of biometric use, according to the ICAO, is to allow for verification(“confirming identity by comparing identity details of the person claiming to be aspecific living individual against details previously recorded about that individual”) andidentification (“determining likely identity by comparing identity details of thepresenting person against details previously recorded on a number of livingindividuals”). Additional potential benefits include advanced passenger information toports of entry, and electronic tracking of passport use.In their review of biometric technologies, the ICAO assessed compatibility according toseven criteria, including:- compatibility with enrolment requirements- compatibility with MRTD 77 renewal requirements- compatibility with MRTD machine-assisted identityverification requirements- redundancy- global public perception- storage requirements- performanceThe ICAO then assessed the available technologies, separating them into three groupsbased on their overall ability to meet the comprehensive set of requirements, and foundthat:Group 1: Face achieves the highest compatibility rating (greater than85%);Group 2: Finger(s) and eye(s) emerge with a second-levelcompatibility rating (near 65%); andGroup 3: Signature, hand and voice emerge with a third-levelcompatibility rating (less than 50%).By 2003, facial recognition emerged as the primary candidate. 78 Intellectual Propertyissues hindered the acceptance of iris scans, whereas facial recognition was believed to77 Machine readable travel documents.78 International Civil Aviation Organization, Biometrics Deployment of Machine Readable Travel Documents ICAOTAG MRTD/NTWG Technical Report: Development and Specification of Globally Interoperable BiometricStandards for Machine Assisted Identity Confirmation Using Machine Readable Travel Documents, Montreal, ICAO,2003.