Compulsory fingerprints for EU passports is privacy risk

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 25th Oct 2004

EU Justice & Home Affairs Ministers meeting today in Luxembourg are expected to agree that two 'biometric identifiers' - both facial scans and fingerprints - will be compulsory in passports for all EU citizens whereas previously they had agreed to make only the facial scan obligatory.

Baroness Sarah Ludford, London MEP and European justice spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats commented:

"Not only does this herald the prospect of 450 million Europeans having to queue up in processing centres to get both photographed and fingerprinted, which will surely be a logistical nightmare, but it also raises even deeper concerns over privacy than existed before."

"Since the intention is to have all this personal information on a vast EU database, it would have been preferable to work out the data protection safeguards before rushing ahead under American pressure. The secrecy and exclusion of both MPs and MEPs which characterises this project is a scandal."