European Commission wants inclusion of fingerprints on ID cards

European Commission wants to make it compulsory to include biometric data on the national identity cards of the issuing countries, such as fingerprints, a measure included in an EU security package presented on Tuesday in Strasbourg during the European Parliament’s plenary session, according to AFP.

Brussels has presented a series of measures aimed at "further restricting the perimeter of terrorists and offenders, depriving them of the means they need to plan, finance and commit crimes".

Around 80 million Europeans currently have ID cards that cannot be read by machines and do not contain biometric identifiers, estimates the European Commission, which seeks to counter paper-based identity documents that are easy to falsify and can be used to enter the bloc from non-EU countries.

"Some Member States still have paper identity papers", such as Greece, says a senior Commission official. "We are in line only with the passport regime", argues the same source.

Commission insists that it would not oblige countries to introduce ID cards, but those countries that use them would be required to include two pieces of biometric data: an image of two fingerprints and a facial image.

Among the other measures to be discussed now by EU legislators, Parliament and Member States, the Commission proposes, inter alia, to ban new chemicals that can be used in the manufacture of artisanal explosives and to strengthen control over purchasers of this type of product.

On the "terrorist financing" chapter, the Commission aims to authorize "law enforcement agencies and asset recovery offices (to have) direct access, on a case-by-case basis, to bank information from centralized national registers, allowing authorities to identify banks where a suspect holds one or more accounts".

Finally, it wishes to update the EU rules on the export and import of firearms for civilian use, by improving control procedures and enhancing the exchange of information.

EC proposals needs backing from the EU Member States and the European Parliament.

Source:RRA.Translated by Miruna Matei