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52 The LSE Identity Project <strong>Report</strong>: 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.
The LSE Identity Project <strong>Report</strong>: June 2005 53activity. This protects against the creation of a national database with unique identifierson every passport holder.The passports will cost 59 euros, rather than the 23 euros originally cited, 87 and from2007 every passport will also include two index-fingerprints. 88 This system isgenerating controversy, with the Federal Data Protection Officer going so far as to callfor a moratorium on biometric passports. 89 In 2003 the German Government waswarned by its Federal Information Security Agency (BSI) that biometric systems wereill-prepared for mass deployment. 90 In addition, experts doubt that the chips embeddedwithin the passport can withstand the wear and tear of time. 91Ireland is moving towards the implementation of biometric passports, although it waiteduntil the EU settled its affairs before moving forward with its own plans. The day afterEU approval of its own ‘standard’, Ireland decided to introduce biometric passports.According to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:“The process will involve storing a digital image of the passportholder’s face, taken from a photograph supplied by the applicant in theusual way. The information will be held by the Passport Office just asit now holds photograph records. As the data will be used only forpassport purposes, there are no legal implications.” 92Germany and Ireland are only collecting photographs, and only for the purpose ofissuing passport documentation. As a result they are avoiding all the legal andtechnological challenges that the UK is currently facing as the UK Government insistson collecting multiple biometrics for the purpose of establishing a national register.It is important to note that the United Kingdom is not bound by the EU specifications,yet the Government recently argued that it must comply with them. In the ParliamentaryBriefing for the Bill, the Home Office stated:“the European Union has gone further and mandated both fingerprintand facial biometrics for Member States’ passports within theSchengen area. The UK supports this move. The Government does notwant British citizens to have ‘second class’ passports and will also bemoving to incorporate fingerprint as well as facial image data inpassports in the future to keep in step with our European partners.” 93There is no requirement to ‘keep in step’ with Europe, just as there is no internationalrequirement for additional biometrics. If the UK were to insist on just one biometric inits passport this would not create a problem; in fact the results would be to the87 ‘Biometric passports are to cost 59 euros’, Richard Sietmann and Craig Morris, Heise Online, June 2, 2005.88 ‘Germany to Issue Passports with Biometric Data This Fall’, John Blau, IDG News Service, June 2, 2005.89 ‘Dispute about biometric passports heating up’, Richard Sietmann and Craig Morris, Heise Online, April 21, 2005.90 ‘Germany launches pilot of iris scan-based border control system’, eGovernment News, February 20, 2004,available at http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/2173/336.91 ‘Germany unveils e-passport’, CNN, June 2, 2005, available athttp://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/06/02/bt.germany.epassport.reut/.92 Dáil Debate, Written Answers, Volume 6000 No.1, April 12, 2005, available athttp://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20050412.xml&Dail=29&Ex=All&Page=38.93 ‘Identity Cards Briefing’, the Home Office, May 2005.
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