| 15 January 2009 The majority of the European Parliament members have backed up the bill proposed by the European Commission regarding the introduction of biometric passports in the Schengen zone. Countries have until June to start issuing the new passports, with a deadline for completing implementation until 2012.
The basis for the new legislation requiring that passports feature fingerprint identification resides in the Coelho report released after negotiations with the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, regarding the proposal. The report is named after Mr. Carlos Coelho, a Portuguese MEP for the central-right EPP-ED parliamentary group, who has drafted it.
Protecting children from cross-border trafficking or abduction is one of the reasons behind this regulation. The Parliament agreed that children should require their own passports, as opposed to traveling on their parent's papers. However, the new passes for children will not feature biometric identification, the Parliament's Civil Liberties' Committee arguing that it's unnecessary, because their fingerprints constantly modify as they grow up.
Countries that are members of the European Union, but not part of the Schengen agreement, such as the UK, Ireland, or Denmark, are excluded from this regulation, however are required to implement passports with machine-readable facial images instead. Even so, UK has already announced that it will introduce biometric identification too, as it does not want its documents to be rated as 2nd class.
In addition, some countries like France or Germany already make use of passes that have fingerprint identification embedded in their chips, even though the deadline for the start of the implementation is June 2009. Also, people will be able to travel using older passports until 2012, with some few exceptions.
Meanwhile, some civil liberties groups and security researchers strongly contest the legislation, for both technical and ethical reasons. They argue that storing so many biometric records in a central European database is a security risk, or that the costs of the implementation are not justified, compared with the gains. While the new passports might be harder to forge, fingerprint identification is not so sound-proof and precedents for false positives exist, security researchers maintain.
The relaxation of older identification techniques like visual contact between border officials and travelers is another possible side-effect. Physically looking at a person might reveal more visual cues, like tweaking or sweating, which are an indication of agitation or anxiety and can give away people hiding something.
Individuals who have no fingerprints, because of various hand disabilities or due to their daily job, will be able to travel using temporary passports with no biometric identification, which will be valid for 12 months. For example, bricklayers are constantly erasing their fingerprints while working, on account of the constant stress on their fingers' skin.
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