WRITTEN ON October 27th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized

There’s no point in UK discussion about whether or not to adopt biometrics, it’s argued, because of our overwhelming international obligations to do so. Tony Blair spoke of “unstoppable political momentum across the developed world”.

But who started it?

One correspondent suggests it

has actually been led by the UK, guided by the same small coterie of officials/consultants/technical-experts/national-representatives to standards bodies (the same few people wear many hats). It’s complete baloney for Blair to claim this is necessitated by the international environment, if engineering that environment has been the co-ordinated object of British foreign policy.

This would take a bit of piecing together. We need some of that crafty software – is it called Hyperion? – which police use to link together networks of ne-er do wells by mapping out thier associations. Anyway, he attached some raw material below.

I dont think these are familiar names. I wouldnt know where to write to these people and express my views. And I dont think the creation of the ICAO rules has been a transparent and accountable process, or has it?

Anyway, my correspondent concludes, it’s a bit much for the PM and Charles Clarke to plead that our hands are now forced by international obligations when engineering that environment has been the co-ordinated object of British foreign policy.
The concern is about biometrics linked to centralised domestic population registers.

See this analysis from an Austrian NGO about the US pushing and shaping the biometrics market.
http://www.idcorner.org/index.php?p=56 (and see http://www.quintessenz.at/cgi-bin/index?id=000100003172&subpage=2) -

“There is now an unstoppable political momentum across the developed world for countries to use the opportunity of the new technology to make their borders more secure. That is why in May 2003 the International Civil Aviation Organisation said that facial biometrics should become standard practice in the 188 countries that belong to the ICA. All G8 member states, for example, are now committed to issuing biometric passports, all have programmes in place to issue biometric passports, and most will have done so by 2006. Australia and New Zealand will issue biometric passports this year, Canada will start next year. The USA passed legislation, post-9/11 that countries whose citizens do not currently need visas to holiday in the States must begin issuing biometric passports by the end of October 2006, or risk facing visa restrictions. And nearly 4 million UK citizens, as you know, visit the US every year and obviously we don’t want them to have to have the inconvenience of what is a £60 tourist visa every time they holiday in the US. The European Union has also agreed that member states’ passports should start containing facial biometrics from mid-2006 and fingerprints from 2008, and that visas and residents permits for non-EU nationals should also be issued with biometrics.” (Tony Blair, 27th June 2005)

“The first phase of biometric passports, in line with ICAO standards, incorporating a facial image biometric, will be introduced during 2006. In the case of Europe, facial image and fingerprint biometrics, in line with those standards, will be required in passports issued by EU states under Council Regulation 2252/2004. Facial biometrics must be introduced by August 2006, and fingerprint biometrics three years after the technical specification has been agreed. All EU member states will have to introduce the same biometrics into the EU common format residence permits and visas for nationals of non-EU states. The United States has issued a further deadline for visa waiver programme countries to introduce facial image biometric passports from 26 October 2006. Biometric passports, or e-passports, incorporate an integrated circuit chip capable of storing the biographic information from the data page, and a digitised photograph or other biometrics. Once all those United States requirements are implemented, nationals of those countries not issuing biometric passports will require a visa to visit the United States. The current cost of a United States non-immigrant biometric visa is £100, requiring a personal visit to London or Belfast and currently taking 31 working days to make an appointment for fingerprints to be recorded, and a further three days to issue a visa.”
ID card 2nd Reading debate, Charles Clarke.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm050628/debtext/50628-09.htm (28th June)

FINAL ACTIVITY REPORT OF THE GROUP OF SPECIALISTS ON IDENTITY AND TERRORISM – 21-23 April 2004

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_Affairs/Legal_co-operation/Steering_Committees/CDCJ/Documents/2004/RAPPORT%20FINAL%20CJ-S-IT%20E.pdf

“CONCLUSIONS…
1.The adoption of ICAO standards for machine readability detailed in Document 9303 parts I, II and III, for all documents confirming identity and nationality used for crossing borders by all categories of traveller, including sea- farers. In particular, the development of biometric safeguards in their travel documents to the highest level possible and in line with the globally interoperable standards being developed by ICAO….
6. The creation or development of systems which allow identity checks with reference to civil status records and registers and population registers to be carried out rapidly (in particular by means of a centralised system) and in a reliable manner. Such systems should in particular include provisions enabling cross references between birth and death records.”
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON LEGAL CO-OPERATION (CDCJ), GROUP OF SPECIALISTS ON IDENTITY AND TERRORISM (CJ-S-ID), FINAL REPORT – 26 to 28 February 2003

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_Affairs/Legal_co-operation/Steering_Committees/CDCJ/Documents/2003/CJSID2003e2.pdf

c. Without the person’s consent, such an interference should only be allowed if it has an accessible and a foreseeable legal basis, if it is for a legitimate purpose (inter alia the prevention of crime) and if it is a necessary measure in a democratic society (the proportionality principle); d. This proportionality principle is of crucial importance in the context of the present work. It is in fact the deciding factor, in particular, in assessing the acceptability of large scale research and/or collection of data with regard to persons who are not suspected of being involved or having committed terrorist acts. This principle, while not excluding the use of pertinent information outside of criminal proceedings (in particular the activities of the police with regard to crime prevention) would forbid the arbitrary and systematic use of identification means.
Progress report on the application of the principles of Convention 108 to the collection and processing of biometric data (2005)

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_affairs/Legal_co-operation/Data_protection/Documents/Reports/O-report%20BIOM%202005.asp#TopOfPage

…Project Group on Data Protection (CJ-PD) under the aegis of the European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ) and, further to the restructuration of the data protection committees, pursued in 2004 and 2005 by the Consultative Committee of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data (T-PD).
…22. In choosing the function of verification or identification, much depends on the purpose to be served by the biometric system and the circumstances under which it is to be applied. The function must serve the purpose for which data have been collected and not amount to an overkill. The same statement would be, in legal terms : the instrument should not be disproportionate in relation to the purpose it has to serve. The choice of an identification system in cases where a verification system would be sufficient to serve the envisaged purpose needs special justification. Verification problems should not be solved by identification solutions.
Conclusions…6. In choosing the system architecture, the controller should balance the advantages and disadvantages for the data subject’s private life on the one hand and the envisaged purposes on the other hand. A reasoned choice should be made between storage solely on an individual storage medium, a decentralised database or a central database, bearing in mind the aspects relating to data security.
GROUP OF SPECIALISTS ON IDENTITY AND TERRORISM (CJ-S-IT) – Specific Terms of Reference – 26 November 2003

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_Affairs/Legal_co-operation/Fight_against_terrorism/4_Theme_Files/Identity_Documents/CJSIT%282003%291%20terms%20of%20reference.asp#TopOfPage

The Members of the CJ-S-IT were Mr Niels Henrik BECKMAN (Denmark), Mr Pekka NURMI (Finland), Mr Sjaak JANSEN (the Netherlands), Mr Arnold BOLLIGER (Switzerland) and Mr Charles STEVENS (Inspector, United Kingdom Immigration Service, National Forgery Section, HAYES Vice-chair/Vice-Président).. Mr Jonathan SHARPE of the International Commission on Civil Status (ICCS) and Mr Peter VERGAUWEN of EUROPOL – Observers in the CJ-S-IT – took an active part in he work of the CJ-S-IT, as did – as Consultants – Prof. Pietrantonio RICCI and Dr.Giulio DI MIZIO, Italian forensic patho logists.
INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION (ICAO) – TECHNICAL ADVISORY GROUP ON MACHINE READABLE TRAVEL DOCUMENTS – FIFTEENTH MEETING – Montreal, 17 – 20 May 2004

http://www.icao.int/mrtd/download/documents/TAG-15%20-%20Report.pdf

1.4 Mr. John Davies of the U.K. Passport Services made a presentation on the policy implications of “Securing data in e-Passports” using PKI.

http://www.icao.int/icao/en/atb/fal/mrtd/tagmrtd15/Presentations/J_Davies.ppt

“e-Passports will initially contain the following electronic data : –Biometric information, •Portrait Data (mandatory), •Finger print and iris data (optional)”
“Encryption of fingerprint or iris data could be considered by states who choose to use these forms of biometric, but encryption specifications have not been developed”

http://www.misweb.com/magarticle.asp?doc_id=15919&rgid=7&listed_months=0

John Davies, director of systems for the passport and records office recalls with horror the problems the UK Passport Office suffered in 1998 at the hands of inadequate systems which couldn’t meet customer demands. Although loss of custom wasn’t an issue, the problems it caused spiralled and created even more work for IT and the CIO. “People would persistently call – sometimes just hitting redial when they couldn’t get through,” he remembers. Written complaints quadrupled and the queues at passport offices all over the country were huge. The press had a field day.
1.6 Mr. Charlie Stevens of the U.K. Immigration Services made a presentation on “What do immigration officers look for in a travel document?”

http://www.icao.int/icao/en/atb/fal/mrtd/tagmrtd15/Presentations/C_Stevens.ppt

TECHNICAL REPORT – PKI for Machine Readable Travel Documents offering ICC Read-Only Access Version – 1.1 Date – October 01, 2004

http://www.icao.int/mrtd/download/documents/TR-PKI%20mrtds%20ICC%20read-only%20access%20v1_1.pdf

This Technical Report is the result of the contributions of the members of a sub-group (the “London 17/18 group”) of the NTWG PKI Task Force. Without their contributions and input to the various discussions it would not have been possible to create this Technical Report in this short period of time.
NTWG PKI Task Force – London 17/18 group John Davies (chairman) UKPS United Kingdom, David Clark Caicos Technologies Canada, Simon Godwin United States of America, Simon Johnson CESG United Kingdom, Tom Kinneging Sdu Identification The Netherlands, Dennis Kügler BSI Germany, Richard Martin US Department of State United States of America, Bill Perry ETS United Kingdom, Uwe Seidel BKA Germany
International Association for Biometrics http://www.afb.org.uk/docs/about.htm – Board Members… Chairman Clive Reedman (ETS), Treasurer Gerry Gardner, General Secretary Bill Perry, John Davies (Mindsite), Gerry Gardner, David McIntosh
iAfB Management Committee,
Daniel Walsh (Convener) Ominperception
Gloria Benson Consult Hyperion
Aziz Shaikh UniversalSoft
Carl Gohringer NEC
Eric Churet Memory Experts Inc
Marek Rejman-Greene BT
Michael Thompson Centrex
Ray Brunton Biometric ID Systems
Richard Gardner WDI