Brussels, 16/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The member states are not obliged to guarantee their citizens that the biometric data contained in their passports will not be used or kept for purposes other than issuing the passport. The use the states make of data included in identity cards comes down to national law.
This, essentially, is what the Court of Justice of the EU ruled, on Thursday 16 April, in a series of cases (C-446/12, C-447/12, C-448/12 and C-449/12) in which it had been asked about this subject by the Dutch Council of State, to which citizens had brought the question. These citizens feared that their digital fingerprints and biometric data on their identity documents (national identity card and passport) were being used for judicial or intelligence purposes, although, by virtue of the relevant European regulation (2252/2004), they may be used only to verify the authenticity of the travel and identity documents of the holder.
The Court gives the reasons for its verdict by first of all stating that identity cards do not come under the scope of application of the regulation, which covers travel documents only. The use of the data in them is therefore a matter for the national legislation. As regards passports, the Court states that although the data in these may, under the regulation, be used and kept only to verify the authenticity of the document and identity of the holder, the regulation itself does not prevent any other use or keeping of the data by the states, as this is a matter solely for the competence of the national legislations. (Francesco Gariazzo)