US Extends Deadline For Biometric Passport
By M K Anwar

Bandar Seri Begawan - The US Congress approved legislation to give countries with a visa waiver agreement with the United States a one-year delay to give their citizens biometric passports.

Brunei, along with 26 other visa waiver nations, are unlikely to meet the October 26, 2004 deadline to introduce biometrics data on fingerprint and iris identification features into their passport.

In March this year, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge recommended a two-year extension beyond the October 2004 deadline for issuing the biometric passports.

Technological problems and also privacy issues in some of the visa waiver countries are said to be main barriers to the introduction of the biometric passports.

Added to this is the cost to introduce the new passports shouldered by the countries.

An official source from the Immigration Department is confident Brunei will be ready with the biometric passport by Nov 2006.

Plans to incorporate biometric data into Bruneian passports are said to be in the pipeline.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in May approved a standard for biometric passports.

Sources have told the Bulletin that it is important that ICAO sets the standards before biometric passports can be introduced.

Twenty-two of the visa waiver countries are in Europe. The other five are Brunei, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia.

Until there is biometric passport in the hands of citizens from these 27-visa waiver countries, they would have to face fingerprinting and have their photos taken upon their arrival in the United States.

According to the United States Embassy recently, travellers from visa waiver countries arriving in the States with non-biometric passports produced after the target deadline, would need to obtain a US visa.

The measure to introduce biometrics passports was taken by the US following the September 11 attack.

This new travel requirement is essentially to track criminals, suspected terrorists and travelers who overstayed their visas, and with biometric data in passport, it is virtually impossible to counterfeit. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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