IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne today visited Gatwick's North Terminal to see the BioDev project in action. The trial is part of complete overhaul of the U.K.'s border security systems which already sees U.K. visas collecting fingerprints from visa applicants across the world.

Only six of the 27 European Union countries and other allies that currently enjoy visa-free travel to the United States are expected to meet the deadline. But officials in the United Kingdom believe a compromise with the United States is imminent to avoid “a serious disruption in trans-Atlantic travel,” according to a June 9 report in the Financial Times of London.

In particular, Arbuzov said, addressing head of the printing house Maksym Stepanov: "You know that we plan to sign an Association Agreement with the EU this autumn. We have to make biometric passports. We do not need any failures."

"The law establishes certain legislative acts for the production of biometric passports for travel abroad, but at the same time, it violates the previously undertaken obligations in the sphere of the protection of personal data," Scientific Director at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Oleksandr Sushko said.

According to the expert, the benefits of the law are leveled by its disadvantages.

"Of course... I would be happy to get the first biometric passport," he said at a press conference on Friday, when asked if he would like to be one of the first to replace his passport with a new passport with biometric data.

Kravchuk said that if Ukraine really seeks integration with the EU, then it is proper that Ukrainian citizens have biometric passports, as required by the rules of the European community.

It will take 30 days to produce such an ID, which will hold information about name, sex, citizenship, birth date and place of residence of a person, their photo, signature, and additional biometric data, as well as issue and expiration dates. The law clarifies that digitalized signature and photograph of a person's face constitute main biometric data, while digitalized fingerprints are additional biometric data.

The law was published in the Holos Ukrainy parliamentary newspaper on December 5 and, as stipulated in the law, it will come into force on the day following the day of its publication.

“The UAE population register system, the wold’s largest civil biometric database, was completed by the end of last year,” Dr Ali Al Khoury, director general of the Emirates Identity Authority , told the sixth ID World Abu Dhabi being held at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research.

The two-day summit tackles the ICT challenges in modern society, bringing together high-level international government representatives and leading players in security, mobility and traceability.

There is only one you – and if fingerprints don’t prove it, facial-recognition and iris scans will.

Those two methods will be used by government departments to identify customers within two years, the Emirates Identity Authority says.

"Iris scans and facial recognition are very important add-ons to our system," said Shukri Al Braiki, a director at the authority.

The ID card, launched a couple of years ago storing cardholder fingerprints, will add the second biometric identifier in mid-2007, according to Dubai’s Xpress newspaper. That’s when the UAE will also begin enrolling the bulk of its expatriates, who do most of the work in this Persian Gulf state. An estimated 80% of the UAE’s population of 5 million is made up of foreign workers. These include workers from the Indian subcontinent, who mainly do manual labor.

Security, counter-terrorism and military experts speaking at a conference at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research said the Government's approach in collecting biometric data and securing its interests was an example that should be followed by other nations.

"The UAE is at the forefront, in contrast to many countries around the world," said Dr Austin Long, a member of the Arnold A Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and a professor at Columbia University, both in the United States.

The General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, Dubai, is offering UAE residents free e-gate cards and smart gate activation - and today is the last day to get it for free.

“There were hundreds of people standing in queue this morning (Thursday) before we opened our kiosk. We have issued 100 tokens for now and will issue more once we finish with the first batch,” Mohammed Sultan Thani, Consultant, Organization Excellence, GDRFA, Dubai, told Emirates 24/7.

The General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, Dubai, is offering UAE residents free e-gate cards and smart gate activation.

The service is being offered only until April 10 at the smart gate and e-gate registration kiosk located outside Hall No 6 of Dubai World Trade Centre. The kiosk is open from 9 am to 6 pm. But remember to take your original passport.

The launch comes at the instruction of General Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Minister of Defence, in his capacity as Head of Dubai Police and Public Security.

"Although now the fingerprint is compulsory to get an identity card for an individual above 15 years of age, sometimes it is difficult to take fingerprints of labourers as their hands get rough due to hard work," Darwish Al Zarouni, Director-General of Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA), told Gulf News.

It is defined as an automated method used to identify a person based on physiological and behavioural characteristic using a unique identifier. It can as well be defined as applied mathematics in biology for purposes of identifying individual characterics via finger prints and pictures.

The UIDAI, after taking all relevant factors into consideration, decided that biometrics attributes of an individual i.e. face, all ten fingerprints and both iris images will be collected during the enrolment process into the UID system.

The UK's first biometric immigration controls will go live at Heathrow airport this spring, following successful trials.

As part of the government's Project IRIS (Iris Recognition Immigration System), registered travellers returning to the UK will be able to bypass queues at Terminals 2 and 4 by using automatic gates equipped with iris-scanning technology.

From now on, applicants outside the European Economic Area or Switzerland who are granted permission to stay in the UK for more than 6 months must apply for a biometric residence permit.

The move is designed to ensure that from 1 December the UK only issues this new format of immigration status document. It is also a requirement under European legislation UKBA said in s a statement.

Public and private sector organisations considering rolling out biometric-based authentication technologies for customers received a boost this week with the findings of the latest Security Index report from IT services provider Unisys.

The research, which surveyed 13,000 people in 13 countries, found that 57 per cent of UK adults are afraid of identity theft, while 63 per cent are concerned about credit and debit card fraud.