EU: Border control for the 21st century:
"automated passenger processing"
01 January 2006
Since the EU decided to go headlong into "biometric" passports (December 2004) and visas (June 2004), under the banner of the "war on terrorism", it has become clear that policy-making has moved ahead of technological capability and any idea of how to implement it. For while it is possible for a state, like the UK, to draw up a national "e-Borders plan" (see Statewatch vol 15 no 3/4) the same cannot be said of the EU as a whole.
The first scheme to bite the dust was the proposal on visas. The idea is that the central EU Visa Information System (VIS) will store the fingerprints (all 10) of all visa applicants taken at national consulates around the world. These biometrics were to be stored both on the central VIS database (which is going ahead) and on a "chip" in a visa permit attached to passports. There was a minor problem of whether the countries targeted ("high-risk regions/countries" like China, India, Algeria, Egypt etc) would agree to have EU visa permit inserted into their national passports. The major problem, however, evident since September 2003, is that if these countries decided to insert their own biometric "chips" into their passports (as they are being urged to do by the EU and USA) these would "clash"/"collide" with those in the EU visa- that is, the readers of the "chips" would not be able to work. After lots of huffing and puffing it took the EU until February 2006 to formally announced that the biometrics of visa applicants would not be inserted into passports but would only be held in the central VIS database.
This decision presents an obvious problem: a visa applicants' biometrics (fingerprints) are held on VIS and a person arrives at an EU border (land,sea or air) with their passport and a visa permit. How are the border officials to check the biometrics of the person to prove who they are? True the passport and visa contain a so-called "digitised" image (simply a copy of the usual passport photo) but this is simply the current technology. To check the person is the same as that on the VIS system their fingerprints will have to be taken and checked at every border crossing (quite excessive for someone "doing Europe") and checked against the central VIS. It is estimated that around 100 million people come to the EU every year with a visa - which is going to create a lot of work and expense.
To an extent the same goes for EU passports. A UK citizen re-entering the country can have the biometrics on their passports checked against the national central records, proving they are one and the same person. However, the same citizen entering another EU country presents a problem in that until there is a central EU database of finger-prints - which a very long way off - their fingerprints too will have to be taken to check against the copy held on the "chip" in their passport (a "one-to-one" check).
An EU Note from the Presidency on "VIS and border control" (EU doc no 7575/06, 28.3.06) confirms these problems. The JHA Council Conclusions of 1 December 2005 on VIS called for "processing biometric data at border crossing points". Similarly on passports there is a need to "verify the biometric data of the document holders at the external borders". The Presidency Note goes go to say that the Schengen Border Code, adopted on 21 February 2006, mentions "controls":
but so far mentions nothing about where checks of biometric data should be performed
For VIS it is "explicitly permitted" (under Article 16) that the "identity of holders of visas" are checked but:
obviously, although not explicitly mentioned, using biometric data
As to EU passports:
there is a wide divergence of views [between Member States] on how the necessary checks should be carried out
It is no wonder the EU Presidency calls for a "coherent" approach. Especially as, stating the obvious, checks at border crossing points:
should be complete, as an incomplete roll-out is considered to jeopardise the e