Report - Guardian

52 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005EU Specifications and ActionsThe UK Government is by no means alone in its attempts to create biometric databases.The European Union has also taken steps in this direction with proposals that willinvolve the collection of fingerprints of all UK residents when they travel within theEU.Despite earlier statements by the European Commission on the need for research on therelationship between a biometric database and data protection rules, the Council of theEuropean Union has established a policy requiring all 400 million EU biometricpassports to include fingerprints, each to be stored in an EU register.The Council of the European Union decided in Autumn 2004 to standardise all EUpassports through the drafting of regulation, and the European Parliament beganconsideration of a standardised biometric passport shortly afterwards. In October 2004,in a closed meeting, the Justice and Home Affairs Council decided to include mandatoryfingerprinting for all EU citizens in the draft regulation. The EU Council then pressedthe European Parliament into hastening the policy through the Parliament in December2004, without detailed consideration of the decisions made by the Justice and HomeAffairs Council. The Parliament was informed by the Council that refusal to accept theirdemands would result in their calling for an ‘Urgency Procedure’ that would ensure thepassage of the regulation. Additionally, if the Parliament had refused, the Councilthreatened to delay the introduction of the co-decision procedure for immigration andasylum issues to April 1 instead of the scheduled date of January 1. 85The legality of this course of action is open to question. However, throughout the entireprocess, the Council had argued that it was compelled to include biometrics in thepassports because of US requirements. Again, the central argument continues to apply:the inclusion of fingerprints in the EU passport system will not assist the US authorities,nor is it a requirement from the US authorities. Rather, this policy serves an EUdomesticpolicy to generate a registry of fingerprints of all EU citizens and residents.Some countries are refusing to contribute to this registry, making the situation far morecomplicated. Denmark has implemented new passports that do comply with USrequirements as they contain a digitized photograph that is kept on a chip in thepassport, although not in a central register. Switzerland and Sweden have acted insimilar fashion. In Greece, the Data Protection Authority prevented the Governmentfrom implementing biometric checks at the borders, forcing it to abandon its plans for abiometric border system for the Olympics. 86The German Government announced its intentions to introduce a biometric passport thatincorporates a digitised photograph from November 1 st . Each time that the passport isread, a unique number will be generated, thus ensuring that the passport is readdifferently by every reader, and restricting the ability to generate an audit trail of85 Privacy International and others, An Open Letter to the European Parliament on Biometric Registration of All EUCitizens and Residents, November 30, 2004, http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-85336.86 ‘Biometric checks illegal in Greece, says Data Protection Authority’, eGovernment News, November 11, 2003,http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/1775/337.