Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 55expensive path to meet the requirement has led to consequences thatare regrettable, but not insurmountable.” 96In a letter to the European Council, Sensenbrenner was even more explicit with hisconcerns:“While the added biometric element will strongly assist in confirmingthe identity of the passport holder, it further adds to the technicalobstacles to completing the process and increases the cost ofinspection infrastructure. (…) In my view, much expense and publicconsternation could have been avoided by a less technically ambitiousapproach, one that simply met the terms of the Act as written.” 97Sensenbrenner also said that when Congress established the obligation and the deadline,it anticipated that the ICAO would establish: “reasonable, cost-effective standardswhich relied upon existing technology” rather than becoming: “enmeshed in new andunproven technology.” Apparently the US Congress failed to anticipate the zeal offoreign governments.In response to continued failures from other Governments to abide by the USrequirements, the US recently announced that it was again moving the deadline by oneyear. By October 2005 all countries will still have to start issuing passports that containdigital photographs, though they are not required to implement chips in their passportsuntil October 2006. 98Currently, the US appears ready to meet its own deadline. In order to comply with theICAO standard, the US is implementing a biometric passport of its own. 99 However, theUS, in compliance with the ICAO standard, is requiring only a digital photograph on achip in the passport, and does not appear to be moving towards a database solution.There are indications of a struggle for more biometrics between the Department ofState, normally responsible for passport and visa issuance, and the Department ofHomeland Security. In one of his final speeches, outgoing Secretary of HomelandSecurity Tom Ridge regretted his inability to get all ten fingerprints included within USpassports:“I for one believe if we're going to ask the rest of the world to putfingerprints on their passports, we ought to put our fingerprints on ourpassports. I mean you can go out to the rest of the world and say we'dlike to engage you in this discussion. We’d like you to consider doingthese things. I think you’re in a much better position to discuss issuesif you have made the commitment to getting them done yourself. (…)I think we ought to take the lead, and that’s one thing I'll say publicly.96 ‘Lawmaker Rips RFID Passport Plans’, Kim Zetter, Wired News, May 4, 2005.97 Letter to His Excellency Luc Frieden, President of the European Council of Ministers and to His Excellency FrancoFrattini, Vice President of the European Commission, from F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Chairman of the House ofRepresentatives Committee on the Judiciary, April 7, 2005, available athttp://judiciary.house.gov/newscenter.aspx?A=473.98 ‘DHS to Require Digital Photos in Passports for Visa Waiver Travelers’, Department of State press release, June15, 2005.99 US Department of State, Abstract of Concept of Operations for the Integration of Contactless Chip in the USPassport, April 2004.