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Biometric Passports Agreed To In EU
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.)"
What could possibly go wrong?
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
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~
Actually two betting Pools.
How Long before all the data is on torrent?
Which country will have the offending sloppy official?
To put up a fence to keep me out? Or to keep mother nature in?
are belong to US, I mean EU.
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.
I can't see this one going very far. Several of the most influential EU nations have general elections coming up within a year or two, centralised European power is already under the spotlight because of the way the Constitution^WReform Treaty was handled by diktat, and governments already lost at sea over the economic mess won't want to rock the boat any further.
In the UK, in particular, I suspect the NO2ID anti-ID card campaign will pick this up in about ten seconds. At that point, it will become associated with the National Identity Register and National ID Card biometrics programmes, and become a political suicide pill.
With a bit of luck, it'll finally bring down the catastrophe that is centrally dictated European policy, make us aware that we don't have to jump just because some guy at 1600 said so, and restore a little of the democracy we've had stolen from us in recent years along the way.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I thought fingerprinting was reserved for people in jail?
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.
...the abusive immigrations officer.
*badum ching*
My UID is prime. Hah!
If this is true, then wont this just hurt the honest people and do nothing to stop "criminals"?
read some interesting stuff at mightyinteresting.com
By giving up my privacy I help catch the terrorists and pedophiles. By registering my fingerprints and DNA I help catch the terrorists and pedophiles.
The terrorists and pedophiles are everywhere. They must be stopped and in order to do so I must let the government read my e-mail, follow my web browsing, track my phone calls. It's the only way to stop the terrorists and pedophiles.
By protesting you support the terrorists and pedophiles you damn pedophile terrorist. If you're not with your government you're with the terrorists and pedophiles.
Terrorists! Pedophiles! Everywhere!!
Must... give... fingerprint... to... stop... terrorists and pedophiles.
I've always (naturally) assumed that Osama has an army of zero-handed clones, who look so similar, it's literally impossible to tell them apart from photos, and that they all have valid passports. Finally, proof! This law will definitely hit Al-Qaeda where it hurts!
Dear EU government officials,
As a loyal EU citizen, in his mid 30's, who remembers a time when fingerprinting was only associated with criminals (you know, watching German detectives on TV... Derrick, Der Alte), I am again surprised by utter waste of EU tax money by a group of people who need to get out of in the real world.
I am just curious to know if this is a knee-jerk reaction to terrorism, simply blindly following USA regulations, or yet another "Please think of the children" action.
However, this is yet another costly measure for EU citizens: New passports for all children.
Furthermore:
1) Fingerprinting does not stop terrorism, since they can be easily faked (according to Japanese research, please Google for it)
2) Yet another way for identity theft will be created, resulting in more innocent people being falsely accused of crimes committed in their name
3) Does not stop the source and cause of child trafficking, just puts another avoidable barrier in place for the criminals and yet another expensive airport/land border check to be implemented
Be a responsible EU official and stop wasting our tax money.
With best regards,
A concerned, honest and loyal EU citizen
as the parlament changed the law to introduce biometric passports, a group of citizens sucessfully launched a referendum.
As a result, they're going to vote on this in May, so this will be a good indicator as the people will directy decided.
And before other people jump on the democracy aspect and representation in the EU, don't forget that many EU government/parlament (including mine) already introducted biometric passports and are directly elected.
It will be also difficult to guess what the swiss result will be as they already 'confirmed' different EU decision in such referendums.
#include "coucou.h"
The UK already has biometric passports, though the fingerprint and iris scan info is voluntary (currently).
http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/about-biometric-why.asp
I wish ID cards were a political suicide pill. I really don't understand why both main parties are pushing ahead with them come what may. It's ridiculously expensive, impossible to enforce and hugely unpopular, so whats in it for them??
Most people in Europe are horrified by yet another intrusion into their privacy. This agreement is made by a group of people who do NOT speak for the majority of the population.
And all this for the sake of the untangeable "war on terrorism". What a sick display of arrogance.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The new law makes no specific reference to bricklayers, who frequently erase their fingerprints in the course of their working lives. "I suppose they'll get classified as disabled and will have to travel on temporary passports," Clayton said. (Emphasis mine)
Oh, the irony...
Nobody writes jokes in base 13. - DNA
If voting,be sure to check out these impressive tools to help make an informed choice in the European Parliament elections.
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Campaign-Save_amendment_138_and_Internet_Freedom_from_Council_of_EU#General_Advice
For example can sort by amendment 138, see who was against:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score
My mother had five sons. I was one of them. There were moments when she had the damndest time keeping our names straight. I once called my wife by an ex-girlfriend's name... well, that was in my head, but I refuse to call her anything but "honey" for fear that I might slip one day.
Look people, these "government" people are just like our parents. They know what is best for us and want to take very good care of us. So what if they have a little trouble keeping up with our names and addresses and think they need biometric tracking systems just to remember our birthdays? Really? Is it so bad?
----
Leonard: You convinced me. Maybe tonight we should sneak in and shampoo her carpet.
Sheldon: You don't think that crosses the line?
Leonard: Yes... For God's sake, Sheldon, do I have to... hold up a sarcasm sign every time I open my mouth?
Sheldon: You have a sarcasm sign?
I wish ID cards were a political suicide pill. I really don't understand why both main parties are pushing ahead with them come what may.
One of us has got completely the wrong idea here: I thought the Tory lot had given a pretty much black-and-white statement that they would repeal the Identity Card legislation, and had consistently opposed the introduction of all the biometric nonsense from the start.
Yep, here we go: ID cards on the Conservatives' web site is pretty clearly against them.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Whatever the official route my be, EU directives have repeatedly been used as an excuse to push through unpopular legislation that would never fly domestically. That really has to stop.
I meant the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, by the way.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They have started issuing biometrical passports already - quietly, so that no one had chance to say no... However, I don't see this as threat to my privacy / human rights. The only thing that concerns me are technical issues - and it seems to be quite poorly protected.
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.
Maybe it won't get far in the UK, but I'm afraid the rest of Europe (sadly Ireland included) will hop right aboard this.
For example, in Belgium (where love of red-tape is a universal fetish) it is required by law for everyone to carry their ID papers at all times. You can be stopped and asked for your papers by the police at any time, without cause. And this is considered perfectly normal. As if Germany had actually won the war. (Vos papieren! Schnell!)
The Germans will love something like this. The Belgians will love it even more. The French will complain, but no one cares what they think. The Italians will create a market in fake ID. And the Irish will hop on board because they're terrified of annoying Europe after their public said No to Lisbon.
AFAIK most european countries have had biometric passports for years. Certainly my (german) passport has an RFID tag with my photo's biometric information on it. More recent passports also include fingerprints.
AFAIK, this is also mandated by the US, for any foreigners wishing to enter the country visa free (visa waiver program countries). A friend from switzerland told me (in 2007), that he was actually allowed to choose whether he wanted a normal passport or a biometric one (enabling travel to the US).
So what is actually new here? It hasn't been EU-wide before? Not that I approve of this or anything, but most EU countries have this implemented already, anyways.
I think you overestimate the value E.U. citizens put on their privacy, and their resistance to governments collecting data about everyone. There is virtually none.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Most European countries already issue biometric passports. US and UK has been pushing really hard on this issue (US requirement for visa waiver programme). The problem is that they didn't care much about privacy. As an effect the data is poorly protected and what's even worse, accessible by RF. So now, to steal someone's identity, you don't even have to have physical access to his passport. Just get within 20-30cm.
so whats in it for them??
Their bosses gratitude.
(The identity of their masters is a matter of some debate. Insert favourite conspiracy meme. The Rothschilds, the Bankers, the illuminati, the Americans, big business, the Jews, the 4th Reich, Lizard people from beyond the 4th dimension, etc..)
This time make sure you go to vote the MEP that will truly represent you and your views.
I don't recall seeing a box labelled "None of the above" on any ballot.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
It's just a shame that even when there would be a referendum in Holland, government simply nullifies it because 'the people are not well-informed' or say it's only meant as a guideline.
We only had one referendum and there we voted against a European Constitution. After that they never gave us the chance to vote for the new one and simply adopted it.
Anyway, Whatever Dutch Parliament says, it's almost never representative of what the Dutch people think or want.
Interesting news, considering that Portugal, an EU member since 1986, has been issuing these EU biometric passports for some years now. Actually, nowadays you may even enter Portugal through a completely automated passport control.
...27000+ officials that can issue a passport. It should be trivial to find a corrupt official in, say, Italy who will create a passport for you with the right biometrics. How is this going to make anyone safer?
This sig is just as redundant as the rest of this posting
Until they get into power, and then that promise will be forgotten along with all the others.
I'm wondering if there's a way to get your fingerprints permanently removed without causing too much other serious damage. If you've got no fingerprints what are they going to do? If they refuse you a passport on those grounds then you'd likely have a good case in law.
The EU was given a choice between biometric passports and having all of their citizens apply for visa when traveling to the US. For some reason they thought it that staying within the Visa waiver programme was more important than putting their citizen's fingerprints on rfid chips in their passports.
Given the importance of the US in international commerce, science, technology etc. this doesn't seem such a stupid decision.
I'm a German living in the USA and I had to renew my passport just a few months ago. The last time I could just do the passport renewing by mail but now with the biometric fingerprints you have to drive to one of 5 locations in the USA of which most are in the southern parts. Luckily I was only 5 hours away from the place but there is a high chance that people will have to travel through a few states to get their passport renewed now. At least I only have to do that again in 7 years.
In the UK, in particular,
...there is an automated surveillance camera on every corner, some of which can automatically respond to sights and sounds and alert the police that you MIGHT be doing something wrong.
Big Brother is already watching you. You already lost. Of course, the only reason that's not true in the USA is that it's bigger (same reason for our poor broadband penetration. Net neutrality is the new way they try to ghettoize, rather than just not being able to get high speed.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They become a lot more unpopular when people realise how much they have to pay for them - though sadly by that time, it's already implemented and they've got no choice but to go along with it.
Unfortunately until that point, most people are fooled into equating the UK's ID card scheme with "card with your name and photo on it that they'll give you for free or at a minimal cost".
I wish I could share your optimisim. Whatever current polls are on the UK's ID card scheme may or may not say, the Government is still moving full steam ahead with ID cards, the national database, and biometric passports.
Even though the Conservatives say they will scrap the scheme, I still fear that we'll be too far down the road, or they'll still want biometric passports.
With a bit of luck, it'll finally bring down the catastrophe that is centrally dictated European policy
It's not a European issue - the UK Government are just as keen for these policies, as you should know from their ID card scheme. More generally, the Government have removed many civil liberties over the years, and continue to do so - the European Convention on Human Rights is the only hope of challenging some of these changes.
We already have this in Germany, for as long as I live (40 years now).I wrote the same in a similar thread here on /. a couple of weeks ago, but I'll repeat it here for your convenience: I was on vacation in the USA last October. The number of times I had to show my ID card to private people in those 10 days far exceeded the number of times I was asked to show my ID card to a German police officer ever.
Although any police officer may ask you for your ID card whenever he likes, without any reason whatsorever, in my whole life this has never happened. Whereas each time I was paying a silly $10 T-shirt with my credit card on the aforementioned trip to the USA, I was asked to show my ID card. And not by some authority, but by a little clerk!
[...]pedophiles are constantly crossing the borders to [...] molest our children
There's a distinction I think it's worthy to know, so I'm going to spell it out. Hopefully someone will benefit from this.
They're not the same. If you're a /Child [PM].*/, then typically you're also a pedophile, but not the other way around.
I'm not here to defend any group in particular. Just to make the distinction clear.
[I think children deserve to be protected by the legal system, but I also think that 17-year-olds should be allowed to film themselves having sex and show their pr0n to their friends. I'm for the rule of law, and against the rule of puritans. Ask me if you want to know all the nuances of my opinions.]
There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant -- a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn't even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the weekend. If you were trying to raise a loan for a jetcar, sign a missile treaty or pay an entire restaurant bill things could get really trying.
Hence the Ident-i-Eeze. This encoded every single piece of information about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-readable card that you could then carry around in your wallet, and therefore represented technology's greatest triumph to date over both itself and plain common sense.
* * *
Swooping through virtual space towards him came a small flock of mean and steely-eyed creatures with pointy little heads, pencil moustaches and querulous demands as to who he was, what he was doing there, what his authorisation was, what the authorisation of his authorising agent was, what his inside leg measurement was and so on. Laser light flickered all over him as if he was a packet of biscuits at a supermarket check-out. The heavier duty laser guns were held, for the moment, in reserve. The fact that all of this was happening in virtual space made no difference. Being virtually killed by a virtual laser in virtual space is just as effective as the real thing, because you are as dead as you think you are.
The laser readers were becoming very agitated as they flickered over his fingerprints, his retina and the follicle pattern where his hair line was receding. They didn't like what they were finding at all. The chattering and screeching of highly personal and insolent questions was rising in pitch. A little surgical steel scraper was reaching out towards the skin at the nape of his neck when Ford, holding his breath and praying very slightly, pulled Vann Harl's Ident-i-Eeze out of his pocket and waved it in front of them.
Instantly every laser was diverted to the little card and Swept backwards and forwards over it and in it, examining and reading every molecule.
Then, just as suddenly, they stopped.
The entire flock of little virtual inspectors snapped to attention.
"Nice to see you, Mr Harl," they said in smarmy unison. "Is there anything we can do for you?"
Ford smiled a slow and vicious smile.
"Do you know," he said, "I rather think there is?'
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Because you have a totally retarded identification system? Birth certificates? Gas bills? Come on.
The British passport is the de-facto standard method of identification. If you haven't got one, you'll have a hard time doing business in the UK, and if you have, well the you've already got an ID card, but with a bulk of paper attached.
As usual, UK is not bound by the European Union on this one, so stop your non-sense about European policy stuff already. You may scream and shout when the UK finally joins Europe, not before. Informative, my ass! I would consider this uninformed flame bait mixed with a lot of wishful thinking.
I'd say it's time to use a little bit of acid.....but not on your real fingerprints, rather on the virtual ones: i.e.: Burn baby burn, bye bye RFID chip!
~We demand rigidly defined areas of uncertainty~