The Biometric travel document or the biometric passport is an official "electronic identity document that uses biometrics to authenticate the citizenship of travellers. The Board of Immigration Agency (BIA) says the British biometric travel document has a new design and security features which include a biometric chip. According to the BIA the chip contains the applicants scanned photograph which is the biometric element of the document while the rest of the information will include the applicant's name, nationality, sex, place and date birth and signature on the chip.

Biometric Passports

Liam Clifford the Director of www.globalvisas.co.instated today "Ever since the introduction of Biometric passports (US, Australia, Canada among the many) the question of security has always been a factor and also who will have access to them. The biometric travel document includes the owner's details on a tamper proof biometric chip. All United Kingdom immigration ports and European Union (EU) member states have the capability to read the data on the bio-chip.

These hi-tech documents were introduced in 2006 and are part of the UK's ongoing security features in a bid to combat fraud and fake passports. The UK is one of 40 countries who have adopted the new technology.

Countries that are also under the US visa waiver scheme must comply with International Civil Aviation Organisation standards and begin issuing biometric passports, incorporating a facial image."

Who applies for the new passport?

1. You should have more than 6 months outstanding leave to enter/remain before applying for a travel document.

2. You must be lawfully resident in the UK in one of the following groups

· Grant of asylum,

· Stateless person

· Indefinite leave to remain
· Limited leave to enter/ remain

For those people who find handing over their most private details a little much to swollow you are not alone The Home Secretary is under constant pressure from all sides except her own cabinet to step away from trying to enfoce this. The current Passort system seems adequate for many and these propsed changes to assist with the suposed war on Terror seems nothing less than a step to far in a big brother state. If the UK are successfu in making UK Citizens conform to this new infringment on personal data it is almost certainly going to be adopted by most governments acros the Global as way of tracking and monitoring their people.

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