Recent studies from France and the UK have thrown up serious questions about biometric technology, adding weight to concerns already voiced by civil liberties groups.
In France, the Forum for Internet Rights published a study on 16 June on the national identity card project INES (identité nationale électronique sécurisée). The study found that arguments for biometric identity documents – that they would counter fraud and terrorism – were not convincing and that the likely cost (200 millions euro per year) would far outweigh savings from prevented fraud. Furthermore, concerns over unwarranted incursions into the private life of citizens and creeping enlargement of access to private information had not been properly addressed.
In the UK, a report by the London School of Economics has shown that the cost of the government’s proposed biometric identity card scheme could be £300 (€450) per card. The report follows up another LSE study in March which found the proposals ‘technically unsafe’ and a study carried out by the UK passport service showing that biometric technology is still far from reliable.
In the meantime, reports from Ireland state that plans to introduce biometrics into passports have been shelved in the expectation that the US will relax their demands on this issue (see, however, EurActiv 16 June 2005).
