Statewatch Editor Tony Bunyan is none too pleased at the EU plans to introduce biometric passports.

"For EU citizens getting a passport is quite straightforward, you fill in the form, get your picture taken in a photo booth and simply post both to the passport office. This simple process is about to change: to get a passport you will have to present yourself to an "enrolment centre" where a special picture will be taken of you and then you will have to have your fingerprints taken. These will then be held on a European database with personal data."

The political decision to introduce compulsory biometric identifiers, first on visas and residence permits and then on passports, was taken at two Informal meetings of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers (in February 2002 and then in March 2003). The Commission argued for a so-called "coherent approach" for "all travel documents, including the passports of EU citizens". These decisions were not reported at the time. It was the European Councils (the meeting of EU prime ministers) at Thessaloniki in June 2003 and later in Brussels on 12 December 2003 who formally endorsed the proposal. A secondary reason for bringing in biometrics on EU passports, the Commission argues, is that the USA is demanding them on passports too.

The legal basis for the proposal is highly dubious, see: Commission’s EU biometric passport proposal exceeds the EC’s powers, Statewatch legal analysis concludes that: "no powers conferred upon the EC by the EC Treaty, taken separately or together, confer upon the EC the power to adopt the proposed Regulation"

The ignorance in the making of these decisions about biometric identity as a surrogate for security continues to be staggering and it would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. I could mutter 'security is a trade off ' and 'biometrics may be unique (mostly) but they're not secret' and 'identity is no gaurantee of security' and 'statistically the bigger the biometric database the bigger the error rate' and 'false positives' and 'false negatives' and 'information overload' and 'well resourced clever human intelligence' and ''security is only as strong as the weakest link', but there's not much chance of getting heard by the 'war on terrorism' gang. And the sad thing is that I don't even know that much about security but even I can see the sense of people who really do know about it like Bruce Schneier. What kind of a world our our children going to grow up into?