Frattini’s Folly: Yet Another Case Of What Not To Do With Biometrics

October 2 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

The International Herald Tribune has reported that “the European Union’s top justice official wants a log kept of all non-EU citizens entering and leaving the 27-nation union as part of a raft of new anti-terror measures.” EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini has indicated that “non-EU nationals would be electronically registered with biometric identifiers under the plan.”

According to the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, France alone receives some 79.1 million visitors a year. Of those European Union countries indexed on the barometer the combined number of visitors a year is nearly 341 million. Even if visitors from outside of the European Union only number around a quarter of the overall total, this proposed system would have to be capable of registering over 85 million visitors in the first year after a full implementation.

Assuming only half of these annual figures are return visitors and new visits increase annually at a rate of 5% the database for such a system would store some 267 million individual identities just five years after full implementation.

If the proposed system is to include a search feature with live scanners at points of entry into the European Union and elsewhere, the approximate time it will take to search the necessary two thumbprints against 267 million stored records would be 3 minutes per search. This doesn’t not include the time it will take for visitors to adequately scan two thumbprints into the system at a border crossing. Currently, border guards are expected to check passports and escalate suspicious cases in under 60-seconds.

Biometric technology has some very useful applications. For example, as Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems used by law enforcement agencies or as part an access control system on a limited scale. Mr. Frattini’s proposal, however, is not among such useful implementations. Aside from the inevitable wait times that would increase while visitors struggle to adequately roll fingerprints on the scanner and the system searches its gargantuan database, questions remain as to how such a large system with many remote access points would be secured.

Unfortunately, Mr. Frattini seems to be unconcerned with the possible threats to privacy and the sensitive personal information of visitors stating that the new measures “have nothing to do with freedom of expression.”

The costs of such an undertaking will be considerable - both financially and otherwise. All of this so that officials might know when a person has entered the European Union, overstayed his or her welcome and is now living among 490 million others somewhere in one of 27 countries. The question begs, do the costs associated with such a system outweigh the costs associated with the threat?

Beyond the new visitor measure, The International Herald Tribune reports that Mr. Frattini is “also considering proposing a broader legal definition of conspiracy.”

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