News

Biometric Borders

By Sean Whelan, Europe Editor

There is a hard way and an easy way of doing everything and becoming an illegal immigrant is no different.

The hard way involves dangerous journeys, smugglers, hardships and constant risk. The easy way is to enter a country legally, with a proper visa, and then just stay on after the visa has expired.

It was standard practice for Irish people going to the US, so it should come as little surprise to us to learn that around half of Europe's estimated eight million illegal immigrants got into Europe the easy way - legally.

But now the European Commission wants to make it harder for legal entrants to stay on beyond their allotted 90 days and they want to use technology to do so.

At the moment someone entering the EU with a valid visa is not recorded, so once they clear immigration control, there is no way of knowing if they have left the EU again.

The Commission suggests setting up an electronic entry and exit system for the EU, so that non EU citizens entering with a valid visa would be recorded in the system, and checked out again when they leave. If they have not checked out within their allotted period (normally 90 days for a short stay), their details would be passed to the immigration police throughout the EU.

The key to making the system work is biometric data, especially fingerprints.

Non- EU nationals entering the Union would have to record their fingerprints in the entry/exit computer system. This means that even if they have destroyed their passports (as some deliberately do to prevent formal identification and so frustrate deportation attempts), they could be fingerprinted again and a positive identification made, including the date of entry into Europe.

People who violate the system could be kept on file in the database, so they would show up immediately if they tried to enter the EU again, as all the hundreds of border crossings in the EU would be linked in a computer network for this purpose. In fact the persons data would 'flag up' if they went to the consulate of an EU state in their own country to look for another visa, as embassies and consulates would also be linked to the network.

Such a system would form the centrepiece of what the Commission is calling Integrated Border Management. It is intended for the Schengen zone, the passport free travel area comprising 25 EU states, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. Ireland and the UK are not part of Schengen. They are developing a separate entry/exit system called e-borders. Ireland and Britain can apply to join some aspects of the Schengen system, but it is not at all clear that they will do so. It is also unclear whether e-borders will be compatible with Integrated Border Management.

Everyone knows that trying to make separate computer systems 'talk' to one another if fraught with difficulties, even if the governments want them to.

Most travellers will want to know if this system will make it better or worse for them going through Europe's 665 airport frontiers, 871 sea borders and 246 land border crossings.

The commission says technology can make it better. With all the Schengen countries committed to putting fingerprint data on to passport chips from next year on, special automatic border gates could become a regular feature for EU travellers.

Already there are four experimental schemes in places like Heathrow and Lisbon. They work by checking pre-registered biometric data, in this case Iris scans.

Passengers swipe their biometric chip passports and look into a device like binoculars. If the iris scan matches the data on the passport chip, an automatic door opens and they are in.

In theory lots of these devices in airports could cut down the queues, at least for passport control on arrival.

The EU is also proposing to make this facility available to certain non-EU citizens.

About 20% of applicants for Schengen visas are regular travellers seeking multi entry visas for business, study, research or family reasons. After a while people who build up a track record, and who undergo further screening, could get a sort of fast track electronic entry that would allow them to use the same kind of automatic entry gates that EU citizens could use.

This would be particularly useful for US and other business people who fly frequently to Europe.

But again, as Ireland is not in Schengen, it is unclear whether a person from the US with such a fast track pass could use it to get into Ireland or Britain, whether they would need a separate system for e-borders, or whether they would just have to line up and be finger printed every time.

Another system the commission wants to see rolled out would use electronic data to replace the traditional paper visa sticker that goes in your passport.

Such a system is already operating between the Schengen states and Australia. All the same information required for a paper visa has to be given over, but its machine readable at the European border, and is apparently cheaper to implement than a paper system and, they claim, harder to forge.

One system that Ireland and Britain would be included in is Passenger Name Records data sharing for people arriving by air. This data, which is equivalent to the information contained in a flight reservation (such as name, address, credit card number, phone numbers etc) is sent to law enforcement agencies as the plane is being boarded. This data is intended to fight terrorism and organised crime, and is not for border control checks.

Overall the commission says the proposed system would make travelling easier for EU citizens and what they call bona fide travellers from outside the EU, but will make it harder for would be illegal immigrants, criminals and terrorists.

Now begins a long consultation on the plans, and already there is disquiet, particularly at the gathering of so much personal information by the state (or states).

The Liberal group in the European Parliament in particular is worried about this, while others have pointed out that virtually the entire EU population will have been fingerprinted within a decade to put biometric fingerprints on passport chips. NGO Statewatch claims that the EU has gone even further than the US in creating surveillance society.

Even the European Confederation of Police Organisations has expressed concerns that the gathering of so much data may lead to it being put to uses other than just border control.