EU Council 'dodgy basis' for passport fingerprinting and telecoms snooping

5.49.31pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 1st Dec 2004

Tomorrow's EU Council meeting of Justice & Home Affairs ministers is expected to push through a decision for obligatory inclusion on all EU passports of biometric data, both facial scans and fingerprints. Although purportedly 'justified' by US demands, in fact the US does not require (or itself use) fingerprints.

The Council will also progress a proposal to require the mandatory systematic retention of telecoms traffic data (emails, phone and mobile calls, SMS, internet use) long after they should be deleted under EU telecoms privacy law, so that police or intelligence agencies can later seek access.

Baroness Sarah Ludford, MEP for London and Liberal Democrat European Justice spokeswoman, warns that both moves threaten civil liberties but are being pushed through without adequate exploration of either costs or their real contribution to security, and without robust testing of the claims of law enforcement agencies. She said:

"The 25 EU governments are using their untrammelled powers to push through these measures on a dodgy basis, meeting in secret and bypassing full scrutiny of both MEPs and national MPs."

"These measures may well be disproportionate to the threats they are supposed to counteract. But the costs and security claims are withheld from proper scrutiny, and data protection safeguards are not spelled out."

"Once they are pushed through, national parliaments will be unable to stop the consequences*, which could include widespread access to our personal data and further discrimination against ethnic minorities through 'stop and search'.

"The way EU law is currently made in the internal security field is a democratic scandal, showing how desperately we need more open and accountable methods, as the EU constitution will ensure."

Note: *Already Tony Blair has said 'now we are going to have to use it [biometrics including fingerprinting] for passports we might as well give ourselves a full-blown identity card' (press conference, Monday 29/11). Of course the UK only 'has to use it' because the UK government has been an enthusiastic leader in the Council, where the decision needs to be unanimous.