Brunei Confident To Beat 2006 Biometric Passport Deadline
By CT Hj Mahmod

Bandar Seri Begawan - The US Congress is likely to come under pressure to extend a deadline for 27 visa-waiver passport (VWP) countries to supply biometric passports after it emerged that only six European Union countries will be ready to issue the new documents, the Financial Times reported Sunday.

This raises fresh concerns that millions more visitors will need visas, added the report.

A two-year extension beyond the October 2004 deadline for issuing the biometric passport was given by the then Secretary of State Colin Powell and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in March last year due to the significant technical challenges and privacy issues faced by a few VWP countries.

Under the new rules, passengers with passports issued after October 2, 2006 (the target deadline - merely 18 months away) must have a new high-tech version or apply for a US visa, which can take weeks.

On the progress made in Brunei Darussalam - one of the VWP countries - the relevant authorities are confident that the country will be ready with the biometric passport by Nov 2006.

Plans to incorporate biometric data in Brunei passports are said to already be in the pipelines.

The Sultanate has yet to wait for the endorsement on the biometric passport standards by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to come through, where ICAO approved on a standard for biometric passports last May 2004.

But a full standard of the biometric data has yet to be considered, which is very important before any member VWP countries implements the new document since the international community has not agreed on a common standard on security features, with some passports featuring fingerprints.

The US version of the passport will feature digital images of the face, whereas the EU documents will have a digital image and a fingerprint stored in a chip which may also include an iris scan in the future.

Only a few European Commission countries - including Belgium, Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Luxembourg - will be in a position to start issuing the biometric passports from Oct 26.

The UK and France as well as Japan have indicated it will not be ready with the passport by the October 2006 deadline.

Several countries have warned of the difficulties they face in producing the high-tech passports in time to meet the deadline.

The introduction of biometric data passports came in the wake of the Sept 11 terror attacks, for tight security measures in border control.

It is virtually impossible to counterfeit biometric data in passports and it is essentially used to track criminals, suspected terrorists and travellers who overstay their visas. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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