The Wall Street Journal-20080213-Politics - Economics- EU Plans to Add Border Fingerprinting

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Politics & Economics: EU Plans to Add Border Fingerprinting

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BRUSSELS -- A proposal to add fingerprinting to European Union border controls could have a big impact in cutting back on illegal immigration into the bloc but would change little for ordinary travelers from the U.S. and elsewhere, officials familiar with the process say.

The proposed rules, due for release today, would require visitors to the EU to touch fingerprint scanners on their way through immigration. The rules also call for money to link the bloc's border computer networks and for tougher visa interviews, two steps that would aim to crack down on illegal immigration, a hot-button political issue in Europe as in the U.S.

The new rules, which still have to be approved by the EU's parliament and 27 governments, would call for fingerprint or iris scanners to be installed at the EU's 1,792 airport, port and highway border stations. The target date for implementing the law is 2012.

All non-EU travelers, including U.S. citizens, would have to use the fingerprint scanners to prove their identity. EU citizens would be allowed to choose between a "fast-track" fingerprint check and a conventional vetting by a border guard.

The draft law says its top goal is to reduce illegal immigration, especially people who overstay their visas or three-month tourism allowance. Battling terrorism and serious crime are secondary targets, the draft says.

Illegal immigration from Africa and the Middle East have become major themes for media and politicians in many EU countries in recent years. While the numbers aren't exact, Italy and Spain each counted around 700,000 illegal immigrants in 2007 amnesty programs, says Jean- Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the United Nation's Geneva-based International Organization for Migration.

Applicants from countries that need visas to enter the EU would be subject to more extensive interviews and fingerprinting at the foreign consulates of EU countries. Under the draft rules, high-risk applicants also would have to pay a cash bond, returnable when they leave.

Some 70 million non-EU citizens enter the EU every year, including 30 million under a program that allows citizens of 29 countries to stay in Europe for as many as three months without a visa. Some of these people, including U.S. students and businesspeople on short-term work assignments, overstay the three months. They are hard to catch, because EU countries don't share border information. That would change, however, with people caught overstaying as they leave subject to fines or a ban on returning to Europe.

The U.S. already scans fingerprints for all foreign visitors. The new EU requirement is unlikely to create any significant inconvenience for ordinary U.S. travelers, according to a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Brussels.

Some privacy groups, however, worry about a growing trend to hold biometric identification data. "What we're seeing here is the creation of an U.S.-EU axis to keep track of people," says Tony Bunyan, director of Statewatch, a London-based group that monitors civil liberties in the EU.