Since Sept 11, the United States has been pushing for this requirement from EU travellers who had previously benefited from a visa waiver. As from 26 October, any traveller holding a new passport without a digital photo will require a visa to enter the US. Old passports will still be valid without a visa as long as they are machine-readable.
Although the EU has negotiated delays of this deadline, at least two EU countries – France and Italy – will not meet the criteria.
As part of the process of embedding photographs in passports, most EU countries are going straight for the option of also including biometric data (fingerprints) into new passports as required by a 2004 EU Regulation (see Linksdossier). Such data will also be required for entry to the US from 26 October 2006.
The US is planning to meet its own deadline: all new and re-issued American passports are to contain radio frequency identification (RFI) chips by that date. Citizens will also need a passport to travel to Canada from 2008.
There is still controversy over the possibility of identity theft as the technology may not prevent distance reading of the chips.
