The Parliament did not vote on an amendment to the proposals,
introduced by the Council of Ministers in October, that required
fingerprints to become mandatory for all passports and travel
documents issued by EU Member States.
Background
The Regulation is a development of the controversial Schengen
Information System, which enables enforcement agencies throughout
Europe to have access to a database of reports on individuals and
objects, such as cars, for border control purposes, internal police
checks and in some cases for the purpose of issuing visas,
residence permits and administrating persons that the system
defines as aliens.
It became operational in seven countries in 1995 and now covers
the bulk of the original 15 Member States, although the UK and
Ireland are only partially involved. Accordingly they will not be
bound by the Regulation.
The Council of Ministers had asked the Parliament to use its
"urgency" procedures to force an early vote on the Regulation,
supposedly so that a timetable set earlier in the year could be
met, and this took place yesterday.
But the rush for final approval was controversial in that the
original draft of the Regulation proposed that only the inclusion
of a facial image would be compulsory – and that any second
biometric would be optional.
In October, however, the Council of Ministers altered the
proposals, requiring two biometric identifiers on each newly issued
passport. According to privacy watchdog StateWatch, such a revised
proposal would normally be considered by a Parliamentary Committee
before being put to a full Parliamentary vote.
The Parliamentary Vote
In the end the Parliament voted only on the original proposal
set by the Commission, endorsing the Commission's view that only
the facial image should be obligatory. Additional biometrics, said
the Parliament, would be left to the discretion of Member
States.
But the Parliament opposed the setting up of a central database
of European Union passports and travel documents containing all EU
passport holders' biometric and other data. Such a database, said
the Parliament, would increase the risk of abuse and function
creep.
The non-binding resolution restricts access to the data to
competent authorities in the Member States, and explicitly limits
the use of biometrics to verifying the authenticity of the document
and the identity of the passport holder.
In addition, the resolution prevents the coming into force of
the proposals until such time as "the national data protection
authorities have adequate investigative powers and resources to see
to the correct implementation of the regulation's data protection
requirements".
This, according to the Parliament, means that the deadline for
implementing the Regulation should be extended to 18 months after
the technical requirements have been approved, and consequently
that the US should also extend the deadline for its Visa Waiver
Scheme.
The US Visa Waiver Scheme is very influential in the drive
towards biometrics in passports. At present it is due to be
enforced in the US from October 2005, by which time passports
granted to visitors from countries currently entitled to visit the
US without first obtaining a visa – including the EU countries –
must contain biometric identifiers.
The outcome
According to civil liberties group European Digital Rights
(EDRi), the Parliamentary vote is unlikely to have any effect on
the Council of Ministers, which, in the guise of the Council of
European Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, is expected to adopt
its amended Regulation today.
This, says EDRi, "will be the last step of a procedure that has
exploited the democratic deficit of the European Union to an
unheard extreme."
The group accuses the Council of blackmailing the Parliament's
Conference of Presidents, which rules on agenda issues, in order to
push the Regulation towards a vote despite major amendments to its
terms.
"If the Presidents had refused, the Council threatened to delay
the introduction of the co-decision procedure for immigration and
asylum issues," said EDRi. "And if Parliament had decided to refer
the new proposal back to the LIBE committee, [the Parliamentary
body charged with reporting on the proposals] the Council announced
it would just completely ignore Parliament, under some obscure
procedure."
Similar allegations were made recently in an open letter
condemning the proposals sent to the European Parliament by privacy
groups Privacy International, Statewatch and EDRi, and endorsed by
70 groups, 9 national data protection regulators and over 200
individuals.
