Report - Guardian

50 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005be more socially acceptable. The ICAO felt that a single standard biometric technologythat was used by all nations would ensure interoperability. This biometricimplementation would merely require the inclusion of a digital photograph embeddedon a chip within the passport.Following a meeting in early 2003, the ICAO working group, in a somewhat surprisingchange of position, stated that:“ICAO TAG-MRTD/NTWG 79 recognises that Member Statescurrently, and will continue to, utilise the facial image as the primaryidentifier for MRTDs [Machine Readable Travel Documents] and assuch endorses the use of standardised digitally-stored facial images asthe globally interoperable biometric to support facial recognitiontechnologies for machine assisted identity verification with machinereadable travel documents.ICAO TAG-MRTD/NTWG further recognises that in addition to theuse of a digitally stored facial image, Member States can usestandardized digitally-stored fingerprint and/or iris images asadditional globally interoperable biometrics in support of machineassisted verification and/or identification.” 80The ICAO was recognising that “some States may conclude it desirable to deploy twobiometrics on the same document.” 81 In attempting to accommodate flexibility for thevarying demands of the member states of the ICAO working groups, the ICAO hadsubverted its primary goal of interoperability. The inclusion by a country of additionalbiometrics on a passport does not aid the travel of its citizens if it is only their homecountry that can make use of that biometric. For example, the inclusion of iris data inUK passports will not aid travel to the United States, because the US does not record orverify iris scans. The inclusion of any additional biometrics is unnecessary for addedinternational travel security. The additional biometric can only be of use to the BritishGovernment for possible domestic purposes.The ICAO’s new position has given rise to two conditions. Firstly, despite its goal ofinteroperability, the current international standard is flexible in the use of biometricsprovided that all passports include the mandatory digital photograph. Secondly, theICAO standards are mute on the point of whether there needs to be a back-end databasethat stores all biometrics of citizens’ passports, and whether countries may collect thesebiometrics from visitors. If Britain includes iris scans in its passports, which is not inany way required for travel to the US, there is nothing that would prevent the US, or anyother country, from collecting and storing the totality of information on British visitors.The ICAO does not require the development of databases of biometric information forthe issuance of national passports and verification of foreign passports. In fact, theICAO is aware that there are contentious legal issues involved with the infrastructure79 Technical Advisory Group on Machine Readable Travel Documents and New Technology Working Group.80 ICAO, Report of the Technical Advisory Group on Machine Readable Travel Documents, Fourteenth Meeting,Montreal, 6-9 May 2003.81 ICAO, Machine Readable Travel Documents: Introduction, http://www.icao.int/mrtd/biometrics/intro.cfm.