U.K. to roll out biometric technology to U.K. borders

Following the unveiling last week of an ambitious and multifacetd anti-terror campaign, the U.K. government said it plans to spend £1.2 billion on biometric technology and staff to catch illegal immigrants and others undesirables at U.K. borders. The government, though, has postponed a framework procurement program for a national identity card. The first contract for iris recognition equipment, worth £2.8 million, has gone to French defense and security equipment supplier Sagem. Two units will be installed at Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal 5, and more may be installed at other entry points, the Home Office said. By the end of 2007 frontline staff at all major ports will be able to check biometric data in travel documents against the passenger presenting the document. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said, “We are creating a new frontline (e-Borders) with police-like powers focused on securing the UK’s borders against terrorism, illegal immigration and organized crime.”

The cost of passports has more than doubled over the last two years. The Home Office said no new money will be raised to implement the e-Borders system. “Our new visa charging arrangements give us the financial flexibility to make these commitments,” the agency said. E-Borders will help give effect to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s national security strategy announced last week. The PM said all visa applicants will need biometric visas within nine months. Immigrants from high-risk countries already need biometric visas.

Commercial carriers and owner/operators of all vessels will have to submit detailed passenger, service, and crew data before they leave for the United Kingdom. This will be checked against watch-lists, analyzed, risk-assessed and shared among the Border and Immigration Agency, Customs, Police, and U.K. Visas, and U.K. border agencies, the Home Office said. Brown said U.K. citizens would carry biometric ID cards from 2009 and foreign nationals coming to the United Kingdom for more than six months will need a biometric ID from the end of 2008. This would “prevent people already in the country using multiple identities for terrorist, criminal or other purposes,” he said.

The biometric part of the pilot e-Border project, Semaphore, follows-on from the miSense project to use biometrics and document scanners to authenticate passengers and control their movements that ended earlier this year. Now implemented at Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted, Semaphore has led to 1,050 arrests for different offences, the government said. ComputerWeekly’s Ian Grant writes that Immigration authorities recorded 29 million passenger movements in and out of the United Kingdom in 2006. This led to 13,000 individuals being flagged for further checks and the subsequent arrests. The new technology lets immigration staff scan biometric data in new e-passports. This will give them more confidence about the identity of people entering the United Kingdom while allowing fraud and forgery checks to be undertaken quickly and securely, the government claimed. The new equipment includes a portable iris recognition immigration system (IRIS), fingerprinting and passport scanning technology. More than 100,000 travellers have enrolled on a live demo IRIS system at Heathrow.