BY KARIN WARINGO
BRUSSELS — Soon, the 450 million citizens of the European Union will have their facial images screened and fingerprints taken if they request a new passport. Additionally, anybody from a non-EU state seeking entry or requesting an EU a resident's permit will have his or her biometric features registered. All this is in the name of countering "terrorism".
This measure was endorsed in June during the meeting of the European Council of the heads of states and governments in the Greek seaside resort of Porto Carras, near Thessaloniki. On October 2, Europe's ministers of justice approved some of the technical aspects of recording biometric data on EU visas and resident's permits.
The European public is so far barely aware of the modifications to their passports. Reports in the press have been scarce.
European governments have tried to justify the introduction of biometric data collection by pointing to the US decision to lift visa waivers for nationals of countries that do not include biometric identifiers in passports. However, the fact that the US has been pushing for the use of biometrics for identity checks is only part of the truth.
Human rights activists have pointed out that EU governments act very much in their own interests, and moves to introduce biometric data collection were under way in some EU member states, notably Germany, well before the US demands were put on the table.
Several EU countries have investigated the use of biometric identifiers as a means to verify the identities of marginalised groups. For instance, some countries have used biometrics to identify welfare recipients. Beginning this year, the practice of fingerprinting asylum seekers has been generalised throughout the EU.
The EU has adopted a common format for EU visas and resident's documents. These measures are obviously not driven by US security concerns but by EU states' desire to control their immigrant populations and to make illegal immigration more difficult. From there, it is only a logical next step to apply the same rules to passports and eventually also national ID cards. Indeed, who would bother to forge visas, when it is much easier to forge passports?
However, the introduction of two levels of biometric data collection — one aimed at EU citizens and the other at third-state citizens travelling to or legally residing in the EU — has legal reasons. In 2001, when the European governments endorsed the Nice Treaty, it was decided that passports would continue to be a national matter, rather a common EU responsibility. The reason was not only a matter of some states seeking to preserve their sovereignty rights, but also different national traditions with regards to how personal documents are handled.
Since the decision was taken in Thessaloniki for a "coherent approach" to passports among EU member states, the European Commission has been looking for a "legal basis" — a loophole in EU law — that would allow it to become active in this domain.
The agreed new format for EU visas and residents' permits builds on a proposal by the European Commission. Visas and permits will incorporate 32K or even 64K chip, which will include a template of the bearer's facial image and two sets of fingerprints. Indeed, physical contact between the visa applicant and the consular officials should be avoided as is explained further.
The European Commission has for the moment discarded the option of using iris recognition technology (the scanning of the iris of the eye), because the patent for this technology is held by a single US company. Iris scanning not only allows the verification of a person's identity with great certainty, it can also reveal if a person is suffering from certain hereditary diseases. Reading between the lines of the European Commission documents, it seems the iris scanning was also rejected due to data protection issues and because the possibility of information abuse was too great.
Citing a 1995 EU directive, the European Commission requires all EU member states to establish independent authorities to be in charge of supervising how data protection is handled. It urges that these authorities be endowed with sufficient means to fulfil the additional tasks required by the introduction of biometric identification. It explicitly warns: "Measures to reinforce public security must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of the persons concerned."
The Working Party on Data Protection, an independent advisory body of the EU on data protection and privacy issues, released a document dealing with biometrics. This document explicitly detailed the risks that might arise from biometric technologies. It warns of the possibilities of abuse by third parties, including law enforcement authorities. However, warnings have largely gone unheeded.
People willingly, and largely unconsciously, fill the databases of banks and supermarket chains with personal information. Companies increasingly use biometrics as a means to enhance their security systems. Libraries and school canteens have introduced biometric identification systems as a means to verify the identity of their customers.
Advances in technology and medicine are increasingly used on a large scale, though still on a voluntary basis, within the framework of criminal investigations. In Germany, for instance, the police, after particularly brutal cases of sexual abuse and murder, repeatedly call on male citizens to volunteer blood and DNA samples in an effort to identify culprits or limit the number of suspects. Presently, there are restrictions on how long data can be stored, how much access third parties have to it and the degree of exchange between databases.
Once EU governments begin the widespread and systematic collection of biometric data, there will be an inevitable temptation to relax these restrictions. Already, the European "biometrics industry" is pushing for this.
[Karin Waringo is a Brussels-based freelance journalist.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, November 12, 2003.
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