A trial of the biometric technology to be used from 2006 in the UK's next-generation passport cards is to begin later this year in an unnamed small town. In line with civil aviation authority rules, the passport service must have biometric chips - containing fingerprint or iris data - embedded into British passports by 2005, with the service's overall strategy of introducing a biometric 'passport card' in place by 2006.
The Home Office confirmed that the trial will run for six-months in a small town with a population of about 10 000 people. A Home Office spokesman said: "The trial is for enrolling biometric information for the passport service, working out the feasibility, cost and practicality of taking biometric information from a cross-section of the population."
The UK government has also announced plans to extend a biometric scheme for people applying for visas to the UK to tackle immigration and asylum abuse. In July, a six-month pilot scheme began in Sri Lanka where everyone applying for a visa to the UK had to provide a fingerprint record that was stored electronically. This is then used to identify the 'significant number' of Sri Lankans who the government claims on or after arrival in the UK make fraudulent asylum or immigration applications.
The US is already introducing a requirement for all visas for the United States to contain a biometric by October 2004.
source: www.silicon.com
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