Biometrics – infringing our fundamental rights?

From 26 October the US will tighten up its visa-waiver scheme, which allows visa-free travel for travellers from most European countries. Travellers will only be allowed to enter the US without a visa if they have passports carrying biometric information.

The US authorities are putting their faith in the technology of biometrics to deliver greater security.

The EU, too, is exhibiting similar faith in the technology. An EU regulation of 13 December 2004 on standards for security features and biometrics in EU citizens’ passports established that, within 18 months, newly-issued passports would include digital facial images and within 36 months, fingerprints. Passports will have to be "machine-readable".

But not everyone is in favour of these developments.

Tony Bunyan, director of the campaign organisation Statewatch, argues that "people have not yet realised that by autumn 2007 EU passports will have biometric data and EU citizens will have to go to an enrolment centre to be cross-examined, have their fingerprints taken and their face scanned".

He blames the EU’s decisions on pressure from the US, saying that on 16 October 2001, Bush wrote a letter to the European Union containing "a list of proposed actions that the European Union might undertake to help the United States in the international effort against terrorism" which included the use of biometrics in identification documents, and the retention of critical data.

But he adds that the EU is now going beyond what is happening in the US.

French Liberal MEP Jean Marie Cavada, who chairs the European Parliament’s committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, has protested about the way the decision was taken by national governments. "The lack of transparency and legitimacy was clear: there has been no public debate on this issue and no real participation by MEPs," he said.

Bunyan warns that EU citizens’ data will be stored on the Schengen Information System II database.

"These proposals [EU legislation on biometric passports] are yet another result of the "war on terrorism" and show that the EU is just as keen as the US to introduce systems of mass surveillance which have much more to do with political and social control than fighting terrorism," he claims.

Biometrics are costly but governments believe that the price is worth paying for the sake of greater security, though there are other potential costs - to civil liberties.

Biometrics throw up problems of data protection and data retention. The information about the biological details of a person will be retained by the passport authorities.

The Commission insists that the data held will come under the 1995 directive on data protection. But what control will the passportholder have on the use of that data and what protection if the database is unlawfully hacked?

Sergio Carrera, a research fellow for the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels argues that "there are no guarantees that the individual is being protected". He adds: "Biometric passports can create insecurity instead of security."

Are biometrics really efficient and safe? Even fingerprints can be forged and not just in bad action films (a Japanese biometrics student created fake fingerprints out of the material used to make ‘gummy bears’). Do biometrics infringe upon our fundamental rights?

The coming years are likely to see campaigners test the extent to which biometrics are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Positive profiling

In the wake of what the UK government said was a foiled terrorist plot, a number of senior ministers from EU states met in London on 15-16 August to discuss anti-terrorism measures. Franco Frattini, the European commissioner for justice, freedom and security, called for "positive profiling" of passengers. He avoiding using the terms "ethnic profiling" or even "negative profiling", which aims to screen out passengers who might be a threat to security - based on negative, suspicious characteristics.

A negative list of suspects already exists in the EU, with the APIS (Advanced Passenger Information System), but some EU member states wish to go a step further in profiling suspects.

Positive profiling offers passengers the chance to agree to undergo biometric checks at airports. Their incentive is to avoid long queues. Security services hope to establish a list of "trusted travellers".

The scheme has already been tested in certain European airports, at Heathrow (London), Schiphol (Amsterdam) and Frankfurt.

In Amsterdam nearly 30,000 members have enrolled in Privium. The passengers are mainly business people who travel on average 35 times a year and are prepared to pay the minimum fee of €99 a year.

Max Snijder, chief executive of the Biometric Expertise Group and the European Biometrics Forum, said that the Commission was looking at funding positive profiling from two perspectives: to improve border security, and to encourage economic development of an European expertise. Positive profiling initiatives will probably be funded by the Commisison’s enterprise department rather than its department for justice, freedom and security. The first call for tender will be in 2007.

EU member states still have to discuss the standards and criteria that will be used for positive profiling.

From 26 October the US will tighten up its visa-waiver scheme, which allows visa-free travel for travellers from most European countries. Travellers will only be allowed to enter the US without a visa if they have passports carrying biometric information.