From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Dec 18 2002 - 08:12:15 MST
Eugen Leitl
>What's worth, the G8 want to implement biometrics. I guess voting alone
>isn't enough.
(more info)
G8 Countries Call for Biometric Data of all Travelers to be Recorded and
Stored
[12.12.2002 12:08 ]
The eight industrial countries that regularly meet as the G8
Group[1] intend to make the security industry a gift of a very
special kind. Nothing less than the upgrading of the passports of
all travelers worldwide with biometric features is what the grand
get-together has in mind. heise online is on possession of a
planning protocol to that effect confirming the "universality,"
"urgency" and "technical reliability" of the concept.
The immigration experts of the group of states have already agreed
on an initial list of principles. This -- together with projects to
create a comprehensive databank about the exchange of child
pornography, as well as projects on the employment of undercover
investigators -- is to be completed during the first meeting of the
group of major powers under the future presidency of France at the
beginning of 2003 and then implemented with the aid of international
standardization bodies. In the paper the G8 working group
emphatically recommends the development of a "complete, common
technical interoperability standard," upon the basis of which all
nations of this world are to introduce the machine-reading of
identity papers with biometric features. The working group reckons
that this measure will enhance the capacity to fight international
terrorism. At the same time the experts are fanning the fear that a
delay in the implementation of such a global, interoperable system
would "unnecessarily increase the risks to our populations."
In devising the standard the immigration body is working together
with the International Civil Aviation Authority ICAO. That
Montreal-based body of the UN has for years now, as a driving force
behind the moves to harmonize passport types and systems, been a
vigorous proponent of facial features recognition as a global
biometrics feature. Fingerprint recognition and iris scanning too
are, according to the G8 report, being "actively" surveyed.
The G8 suggestions read in large part like a massive brochure of the
growth industry that has sprung up around biometrics, which ever
since September 11th can hope to garner major orders of ever
increasing size. The costs alone of building the infrastructure that
will ensure the readability of visas with biometric features, which
will be officially required to enter the United States from next
year on, are calculated to amount to 3.2 billion US dollars. "We
have become convinced," the G8 working group writes, "that biometric
authentication is able to enhance the individual's private sphere,
ease travelling and improve security." However, "proper"
implementation was called for, they added. "Careful scientific
tests" should be carried out to permit the "enormous promise"
inherent in biometric technologies to be realized.
Assurances of this kind have been given for years- yet tests
repeatedly show that biometrics technologies cannot as yet be
applied within the framework of large-scale projects. "The
technology suitable for mass consumption for identifying and
authenticating the identity of persons on the basis of their
physical features is obviously still in its infancy," was the final
conclusion reached by c't´s editors when they examined a range of
eleven distinct biometric access protection devices[2] and their
programs this spring. Indeed, during a field test by the Pentagon
the FaceIt software by Visionics failed in 51 percent of cases. The
head of BioTrusT (a project supported by the German Federal
Government) Henning Arendt on the other hand estimates the average
failure rate of facial feature recognition systems to amount to
"only" about ten percent. For him it would be "inconceivable,"
though, for every tenth person to be forced in future to face
problems when crossing a border.
"Besides the question of suitability for every-day use and of
security, many legal implications" were "still to a large extent
unclear," the Research Committee of the Bundestag, Germany's lower
chamber of parliament, concluded in its introduction to the Report
on biometric identification systems by the Office of Technology
Assessment. Data watchdogs, moreover, warn against piling up
uncontrollable mountains of data, point to the dangerous possibility
of ethnic screening and highlight the threat of camouflaged
investigations being introduced.
Nevertheless, the German Federal Government as early as a year ago
laid the foundations with its controversial second package of
anti-terrorist legislation for incorporating biometric features in
identity papers in machine-readable form. At the time the data
watchdogs had vigorously protested against the plan to fingerprint
and photograph the entire population and had argued by way of
criticism that biometric mass mobilization was an unsuitable means
of fighting terrorism; as, for instance, the 9-11 suicide suspects
had been in possession of valid US visas. Systems for monitoring
citizens more closely still are nevertheless still gaining ground.
Thus, for instance, the new EU visas, which from April 2003 onwards
will also be issued in Germany, are already calibrated to conform to
biometrics. What is more, the Interior Minister of the German
federal state of Bavaria, Günther Beckstein, this November presented
automatic facial features recognition projects in operation at the
border crossing points of Waidhausen and Nürnberg airport. (Stefan
Krempl) / (Robert W. Smith) / (jk[3]/c't)
URL of this article:
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/data/jk-12.12.02-002/
Links in this article:
[1] http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/
[2] http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/11/114/
[3] mailto:jk@ct.heise.de
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