The first regulation will make it mandatory for all newly-issued passports to contain digital facial imaging (within 18 months) and fingerprints (within 3 years). Passports must be machine-readable and the regulation lays down specifications on printing techniques, paper quality and protection against copying and counterfeiting. A single body within each member state will have responsibility for issuing passports.
The measure comes in the wake of US pressure for all EU citizens seeking entry to the US, who currently benefit from a visa waiver, to have machine-readable passports containing biometric data (see ).
Parliament, which cleared the measure on 2 December, stipulated that the biometric data should only be used for verifying the authenticity of the passport and should be handled only by the competent authorities. Data protection rules will apply.
The second regulation is designed to secure external borders by requiring member states to systematically stamp the travel documents of all third party nationals crossing their borders: entry stamps will take priority over exit stamps. A person holding a passport with no valid stamp will be presumed to be in the country illegally.
In October the Council also adopted a Regulation establishing an External Borders Agency to improve co-ordination between member states of external border management.
Both regulations are extensions of the Schengen acquis and therefore do not apply to the UK, Ireland, Norway or Iceland. Denmark will decide within 6 months whether to apply them. The UK, however, is to introduce its own requirements for passport photographs in 2005, which will include biometric facial image data to be incorporated in a chip into newly-issued "ePassports".
