New biometric passports widely introduced in France
May 6, 2008
New French passports embedded with biometric RFID technology are launched on a large scale, US security demands cited.
New passports in France will be issued with RFID technology (Radio Frequency Identification), embedded chips carrying digital images of the bearer’s face and eight fingerprints. Children below the age of 6 will not be photographed digitally. The first of the new biometric passports will be available in autumn 2008, but it not be until June 2009 that this new identity document will be widely offered in 2,000 town halls, that is to say around 20 per French department or administrative district.
The new RFID biometric French passports can be read from several feet away. They will be issued with a ten-year validity.
Since 9/11, the US has been using RFID biometric technology in passport and has been urging other countries to do the same, threatening those who resist with difficulty entering the US. France, along with the rest of Europe, has decided to comply. Since October 2005, the new biometric passports have been required for entry to the Us without a visa; it is only now that they will be widely produced. France is now choosing among consortiums to produce the machines that will create the RFID chips with the digital images of faces and fingerprints for use in the new French passports in accordance with international civil aviation requirements. The new scanners in the Us that will be able to read the chips are installed in JFK in New York City, Washington’s Dulles airport and O’Hare airport in Chicago.
While some believe the new biometric passports will aid in security, others doubt that the new technology will foil ever-more-sophisticated counterfeiters. Others in France have concerns about privacy, with the idea that personal information will be collected in databases and used in unforseen ways in the future.
But for now, RFID passports are the only ticket for French nationals and others into the US, so until a better solution is found, French people wishing to to enter the US are sucking it up and getting fingerprinted and acquiring a digital identity. US homeland security officials point to measure like the RFID passports when discussing foiled terrorism attempts since 9/11.
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