LUXEMBOURG-
European Union nations will have to start issuing new secure biometric passports with a chip containing facial features by the end of August, EU officials said Thursday, and prepare to add fingerprint data to the travel documents by 2009.
"By Aug. 26 of this year member states will need to be able … to include a facial image in a chip," said Friso Roscam Abbing, spokesman for EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini. He said Frattini would present plans to EU justice and interior ministers for adding fingerprints to the new biometric passports in two to three weeks time.
Roscam Abbing said the new biometric features, which reduce patterns of fingerprints, faces and irises to mathematical algorithms stored on a chip, would go beyond security standards demanded by the United States.
EU nations participating in the American visa-waiver program were given until October this year to comply with U.S. standards to have either a digital photo or a chip containing biometric data in their passports if they wanted to continue visa-free travel to the U.S.
