Delay in US Biometrics Passports

While there is no current policy in place, foreign visitors to the United States may be required in the future to provide fingerprint or iris scans when entering the country. The idea started during the Bush administration in 2005, and it still has yet to come to fruition. However, the idea is to monitor terrorists and others who may be of danger to the country.

27 nations currently enjoy visa-free travel rights to the United States and have restricted these biometric based methods of identification, believing that it violates personal privacy. However, the biggest concern for the US is still the costs that would be required to sponsor this particular program.

The idea is that the visa-waiver nations will be required to give each citizen passports that have tamperproof digitized photos that comply with tightening US borders because of the 2001 terror attacks. In addition, those passports will have to have circuit chips that also store biographic information for US homeland security according to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

According to Chertoff, “We are committed in the US, as our partners are, to have secure and verifiable travel documents.” However, we find it interesting that US border patrol authorities do not currently have plans to enforce the same standards when it comes to US citizens traveling within or outside of the US. Still, authorities believe that this approach will “maintain and strengthen the integrity of the visa waiver program.”

Of course, top democrats have cautioned many that this method of tracking won’t necessarily ward off terrorists, and we may pay more money to fight the same problems. However, the idea is to make changes and see how it goes.

Yes, the biometric passport may be useful in identifying a person’s real identity or at least their stated identity. We are sure that some will find ways to get fake passports still the same. However, it does not keep terrorists out of the country, and it cannot help us to monitor terrorists we don’t necessarily know about as of yet.