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Biometric Passports Agreed To In EU

Posted by samzenpus on from the look-into-the-scanner dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The European Parliament has signed up to a plan to introduce computerized biometric passports including people's fingerprints as well as their photographs, despite criticism from civil liberties groups and security experts who argue that the move is flawed on technical grounds. (Back in 2005 Sweden and Norway began deploying biometric passports.)"

10 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. dumb sheep by Swiper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh great, Just because the US has them, we have to get them as well, despite the very vocal criticism there has been....what a bunch of blind and deaf sheep we have as eurocrats!

    --
    ~We demand rigidly defined areas of uncertainty~
    1. Re:dumb sheep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, there are European Parliament elections this summer! This time make sure you go to vote the MEP that will truly represent you and your views. Democracy just don't happens. Oil just don't come out from the pump. Your e-mail just does not sit in the "cloud". People make things happen. Democracy functions as long as people vote. We've seen democracy failing too many times (e.g. 1933 in Deutschland). So get involved, is so simple!

    2. Re:dumb sheep by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "The EU is the largest assembly of corrupt and indadequate politicians you will ever find."

      I disagree, this past couple of years they've done a better job of protecting civil liberties than British parliament has for it's own citizens, that's not saying much but I'd say from this that they're at least better than Britain's Labour government.

    3. Re:dumb sheep by Znork · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is some hope in me yet that there will be at least one MP who isn't like that

      Well, for the parliament there are usually many options you can vote for that aren't in among the worst.

      the constant interference of what basically are foreign powers in our national politics

      A lot of the time it's basically our national politicians using a scapegoat. The commission and council are our own/largely loyal to our own politicians, and they love to shove things through in the EU and then say 'it's the EU!', even if they were the ones proposing it in the first place.

      The problem isn't inherent in the involvement of other EU countries and politics, the problem is the lack of accountability and the way it gets used for denial of responsibility.

    4. Re:dumb sheep by VShael · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This time make sure you go to vote the MEP that will truly represent you and your views.

      Wow! Is there an Oscar, or a Nobel Prize for naivety? If so, you have my vote.

      The Commission of the EU is unelected. They were all found guilty of corruption a few years ago, and collectively stood down. Only to stand right back up again. Corruption pervades the EU Parliament. It was designed to make sure it could not hold the (even more) corrupt EU Commission to account.

      And good luck finding ANY MEP that represents your view if you're a Euro-sceptic. They don't exist.

      Even in a multi-party system, you will still get situations where every elected official speaks in unison, and the "Opposition" is an opposition in name only. It happens all the time, whether in the run up to the Iraq war in England (when the Conservatives couldn't wait to kiss Tony Blair's arse) or in the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland (where all the parties said to vote Yes, except for sinn fein, the terr^H^H^H^H ex-terrorist party.)

      The only solution is to stand for office yourself, and again, the system is designed in such a way that that can't happen unless you're wealthy. (Not just rich, but wealthy.) And as Declan Ganley of the newly founded Libertas party is finding out, even then, the establishment does it's best to ridicule you, destroy you, and keep you out of their little game.

  2. Disabled people = 2nd class citizens by gavanm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People with no hands would obviously be exempt from the new fingerprint-based biometric passport system. Instead, they would have to apply for temporary, 12- month passports in order to travel, the MEPs agreed.

    I can see this being popular with advocacy groups....

    Especially when many non-EU countries are reluctant to welcome people with less than 6 months left on their passports. In effect many will have to apply for a temporary passport every 6 months.

    Stupidity at its best. If the passport biometrics indicate they have no hands, the it should be very easy to verify this.

    Either that or ask people for toe prints, or nose prints or stump prints.

    1. Re:Disabled people = 2nd class citizens by 4D6963 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Either that or ask people for toe prints, or nose prints or stump prints.

      Or better yet, face prints, also known by insiders as "photographs". Presents the advantage of being easily identifiable by anyone.

      --
      You just got troll'd!
  3. Political? by youknowjack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is almost certainly a political move; with terrorism being a scarier topic than privacy

    Nevertheless, the summary doesn't do justice to the article. The article suggests that experts agree the passports will be much harder to forge (impossible with current methods) - which is a big strength.

    In fact, the main argument against using biotech passports (in the article) is that authorities will begin to rely on them 'too much', which doesn't ring true to me, since biotech is inherently MORE reliable than, say, an official trying to identify someone by a small passport photo.

    I think the risk of misappropriation of bio-information is worth it, weighed up against the risk of terrorist or criminal activities which it seeks to mitigate.

  4. Problems by tdwMighty · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._passport#Biometric_passport

    According to privacy advocates, the BAC and the shielded cover are ineffective when a passport is open, and that a passport may have to be opened for inspection in a public place such as a hotel, a bank, or an Internet cafe. An open passport is subject to illicit reading of chip data, such as by a government agent who is tracking a passport holder's movements or by a criminal who is intending identity theft.

    If this is true, then wont this just hurt the honest people and do nothing to stop "criminals"?

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    read some interesting stuff at mightyinteresting.com
  5. Re:As our American friends say, "good luck with th by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's ridiculously expensive, impossible to enforce and hugely unpopular, so whats in it for them??

    Hugely unpopular ? ID cards only seem to be 'hugely unpopular' amongst a vocal minority, everyone else tends to fall into either the 'they will help us catch bad people' or, at most, the 'I've done nothing wrong, so I've got nothing to hide' camps.