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Eye to eye with the passport to the future
(Yorkshire Evening Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) BY SOPHIE HAZAN TO the casual observer it might have looked like a drive to encourage eye care.
On closer inspection these were prototypes of new technology now appearing at passport check-points across the world in a drive to tighten national borders.
And the iris and fingerprint recognition equipment were on show at the White Rose shopping centre in Leeds yesterday.
They are just two methods of immigration control the Home Office is entertaining in a bid to cut back on passport fraud.
From August all newly-issued passports will be biometric, meaning they will have information about the traveller on an encrypted chip secured to the last page.
The chip, which contains the exact facial measurements of the carrier, will make it much more difficult to create multiple identities.
Finger-print records are expected to be added to the chips from 2009.
The Iris Recognition Immigration System (IRIS) that takes photographs of the iris which are measured against the details carried on the chip will be brought in much later on.
Home Office minister Joan Ryan, who was in Leeds yesterday, said the only added cost for the extra security will be the usual annual hike. She said: "Fraud and forgery are a growing problem across the world, and there is a global move towards increasing passport security and incorporating biometrics in identity documents.
"Along with over 40 other countries, we have already begun issuing ePassports containing a facial biometric in a secure chip, and by 2009 it is likely that we will have introduced an even more secure second-generation biometric passport also containing fingerprints. We are also toughening up the application process, with enhanced background checks on applications and the introduction of face-to-face interviews for first-time adult applicants." Barbara Lumb, 62, of Drighlington in Leeds, is keen to update her passport to the biometric kind.
Her husband David, 63, tested the new equipment. He said: "It didn't take my thumbprint because of the brightness in here, but I am sure that will be addressed." Barbara added: "I don't think people will mind queuing, extra costs or any other inconveniences to their travel so long as their identities are kept safe." Project IRIS is being piloted by British volunteers at UK passport control areas. They have found their queuing times reduced, the minister confirmed.
sophie.hazan@ypn.co.uk
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