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G8 Countries Call for Biometric Data of all Travelers to be Recorded and Stored - Heise Online - [12.12.2002 12:08 ]
The eight industrial countries that regularly meet as the G8 Group[1] intend to make the security industry a gift of a very special kind. Nothing less than the upgrading of the passports of all travelers worldwide with biometric features is what the grand get-together has in mind. heise online is on possession of a planning protocol to that effect confirming the "universality," "urgency" and "technical reliability" of the concept. The immigration experts of the group of states have already agreed on an initial list of principles. This -- together with projects to create a comprehensive databank about the exchange of child pornography, as well as projects on the employment of undercover investigators -- is to be completed during the first meeting of the group of major powers under the future presidency of France at the beginning of 2003 and then implemented with the aid of international standardization bodies. In the paper the G8 working group emphatically recommends the development of a "complete, common technical interoperability standard," upon the basis of which all nations of this world are to introduce the machine-reading of identity papers with biometric features. The working group reckons that this measure will enhance the capacity to fight international terrorism. At the same time the experts are fanning the fear that a delay in the implementation of such a global, interoperable system would "unnecessarily increase the risks to our populations." The G8 suggestions read in large part like a massive brochure of the growth industry that has sprung up around biometrics, which ever since September 11th can hope to garner major orders of ever increasing size. The costs alone of building the infrastructure that will ensure the readability of visas with biometric features, which will be officially required to enter the United States from next year on, are calculated to amount to 3.2 billion US dollars.

posted by A Curmudgeon 11:47 AM