Brussels, 30/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission on Wednesday published a new study on how biometric technologies (digital fingerprints, iris and face recognition) impact on the daily lives of EU citizens. The report was published by the Commission's Joint Research Centre at the request of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. The EU has decided to introduce biometric data into passports, visas and residence permits from 2006.
According to the report, the development and use of biometrics present a number of questions: from an economic point of view, EU member states have a role to play in the emergence of a dynamic European biometrics industry. They can push industry to establish common standards to promote competition and job creation; from a legal point of view, responsibility for providing the necessary guarantees on privacy and data protection (in order to control the use of biometric data and prevent it being used illicitly); from a technical point of view, the EU is seriously short on empirical independent data (the report's authors recommend field trials be conducted to ensure biometric systems are developed in the best possible way); from a social point of view, it is essential that the reasons for and the limits of biometric applications are explained to citizens (the report also points out the risk of creating social exclusion for a small but significant part of the population because of citizens choosing not to use biometric systems). The full report, key findings and recommendations are available online at the following address: ftp: //ftp.jrc.es/pub/EURdoc/eur21585en.pdf