EU-US talks on anti-terror ID crackdown

Moves towards a Trans-Atlantic fingerprint database will top EU-US security talks in Washington on Monday.

EU justice commissioner Antonio Vitorino meets US ‘Homeland Security’ chiefs for negotiations centred on travel documents.

Under plans currently set for agreement between the EU and US, European – and American - citizens face mandatory fingerprinting when applying for biometric passports.

Vitorino’s three day trip aimed at greater Trans-Atlantic security cooperation will see officials move further to agree electronic standards for including digitalised fingerprints on travel documents.

He will also discuss EU plans to hand air passenger data to security agencies – a US scheme is to be challenged in the European courts.

The European Commission is set to propose an EU-wide storage of ‘Passenger Name Records’ in June.

Brussels has already proposed that EU passports include a digital facial image and fingerprints embedded in computer microchips.

EU moves mirror work being done by the G8 bloc of countries and the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

On Tuesday Vitorino attends a G8 gathering of justice and home affairs ministers dominated by anti-terror measures such as biometric ID.

High-tech documents will be coordinated to ensure that both EU and US border officials can verify a traveller’s identity.

EU passport applicants would have to give between four and eight fingerprints to get a travel document - mandatory fingerprinting outside criminal investigations is currently only required in Portugal.

The European Parliament and civil liberties campaigners have raised concerns over the move to ‘biometric’ documents.

Critics suggest that the European ‘biometric’ debate has been bounced by Washington’s linkage of the measure to a future ‘visa waiver’ scheme.

Extension of a deal, to 2006, exempting most EU citizens from lengthy and costly visa requirements is tied to the development of common biometric standards.

In the meantime European travellers to the US will be photographed and fingerprinted from September 30 this year.

But the EU does not plan to impose similar “reciprocal” measures on American visitors to Europe.

EU visitors will from this October be processed through the US-VISIT programme at all airports and seaports.

All travellers must provide two digital fingerprints and a photograph to prove their identity.

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