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The New Electronic Biometric Portuguese Passport
by Paulo Colaco Dias - 31st August 2006.
On the 28th August 2006, Portugal joined Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Germany,
UK and few other countries and started issuing new electronic biometric
passports fully compliant with the standard recommended by the International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
The previously issued normal passports remain valid until expiry date but
countries such as Portugal who participate on the USA Visa Waiver Program
must comply with new International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)
standards and issue biometric passports incorporating a facial image to
remain in the scheme by 26th October 2006. The USA Visa Waiver Program (VWP)
enables citizens of 27 countries to travel to the United States of America
for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without the need of
obtaining a visa. The scheme was first established in 1986 with the
objective of promoting better relations with U.S. allies, eliminating
unnecessary barriers to travel and stimulating the tourism industry. As of
today, the 27 VWP countries are: Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium,
Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway,
Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and
the United Kingdom. All these 27 countries are required to issue new
electronic biometric passports to continue to remain it the USA Visa Waiver
Program.
Facial image recognition systems are built on software that analyzes human
faces' images in order to identify them. The software takes a digitised
facial image and automatically measures characteristics such as the distance
between the eyes, the length of the nose, the angle of the jaw, etc. and
creates a unique file commonly known as "template". Using templates, the
software then compares that image to other images and produces a score that
measures how similar the images are to each other.
One of the main goals of the new electronic biometric passport is to combat
fraud and forgery through the use of facial image recognition technology and
of high-capacity, contactless integrated circuit chips.
The new Portuguese electronic biometric passport also complies with the EU
Council Regulation on standards for security features and biometrics in
passports and travel documents issued by EU Member States. This Regulation,
adopted on 13 December 2004, mandates the inclusion of a digitised facial
image of the holder stored on a microchip in all EU passports issued at the
latest 18 months after the date of adoption of technical specifications for
the implementation of the Regulation, and of fingerprints after 36 months.
Since the European Commission adopted a Decision establishing these
technical specifications on 28 February 2005, the deadline for Member States
to implement the digitised facial image in their passports was 28 August
2006, and the deadline for the inclusion of fingerprints is 28 February
2008.
Portugal is already fully implementing both digitised facial image and the
inclusion of fingerprints on Portuguese electronic biometric passports.
Portugal has therefore become one of the pioneer countries in having
biometric passports containing fingerprint information. The UK and several
other countries that never had a culture of having their citizens
fingerprinted are still working towards the inclusion of fingerprints on
their new biometric passports pending revision and consultation of local
legislation concerning privacy and liberty of its citizens.
These technological advances are being adopted across the world to improve
the security of travel documents and border controls, with over 40 countries
in the process of introducing biometric electronic passports which are much
more difficult to forge (almost impossible).
For more information on the new Portuguese electronic biometric passport,
please check the sites:
http://www.pep.pt (very detailed information in Portuguese) or
http://www.pep.pt/ingles/index.php (English - but less detailed
information)
There is a very informative video at: http://www.pep.pt/flash/video_eng.swf
And there are several videos on the Introduction of the new Portuguese
electronic passport at:
http://www.pep.pt/videos/pagevideos.htm (downloads really fast)
The first video contains a speech by Antonio Costa - Interior Minister and
number 2 of the current Portuguese Government. Antonio Costa is the son of
Orlando da Costa, our own famous Goan writer who recently passed away in
January 2006.
If you want to see how Antonio Costa looks like, this is a good opportunity.
http://www.pep.pt/videos/antonio.htm (downloads really fast)
The new Portuguese electronic biometric passport replaces the previous one
and costs 60 euros to issue (double of the previous cost but still much
cheaper than in other countries). At the moment it can only be issued in
Portugal within 6 days or for urgent cases within less than 24 hours.
Unfortunately, the Portuguese consulates around the world are still not
prepared to issue them and it will take a while until every consulate is
furnished a new machine. So, for the moment, Portuguese passports can only
be issued/renewed in Portugal with data (digitised photo, fingerprints, etc)
being collected in the consulates and then sent to Portugal for the issuance
of the new passports. This will increase the waiting time for new/renewal of
Portuguese passports considerably for those who apply from outside Portugal.
More details about biometric passports (UK site) can be obtained from:
http://www.passport.gov.uk/general_biometrics.asp
Paulo Colaco Dias.
31st August 2006
London - UK
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