• DHS publicizing passport alternatives

    Visits to the United States by Canadians have dropped since 1 June, when the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative began requiring new documentation for cross-border land travel; DHS agrees to advertise alternatives to passports as valid border-crossing documents.

  • Sagem Sécurité launches SmartGate in New Zealand

    Sagem Sécurité installs facial recognition system at Auckland International Airport in New Zealand; Aussie and Kiwi travelers with e-passports will be identified from the photo stored in the chip of the e-Passport

  • New ID cards will come with built-in holograms

    The new Secure ID Technology is much more secure than current technologies because the holograms are built into the volume of the plastic rather than being stamped on the surface

  • U.K. to start issuing non-EU identity cards on 6 January

    Visitors to the United Kingdom who extend their stay in the country beyond six months will be issued non-EU biometric identity cards; the U.K. Border Agency has already issued over 100,000 identity cards mainly to students extending their stay or to spouses

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  • Brown 'misled' with ID card claims

    Anti-national ID groups claims U.K. prime minister Groton Brown’s claims at the Labor Party conference that “in the next Parliament there will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens,” and that “We will reduce the information British citizens have to give for the new biometric passport to no more than that required for today’s passport,” could not be true even if taken literally

  • Algeria delays launch of biometric passports

    Trial runs of the new documents began in August 2009 in the capital city, and all citizens who hold an Algerian passport will have to switch to the biometric version by 2015

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  • Clarifying U.S. exit requirements for non-U.S. travelers

    From 28 May to 2 July 2009, DHS conducted a test of biometric exit procedures at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport; the procedures tested during the trial will be deployed in 2010; until then, all international visitors should do is return their paper Form I-94 (Arrival-Departure Record) or Form I-94W to an airline or ship representative

  • Real ID 2.0 introduced in Congress

    Many states saw the provisions of the The Real ID Act of 2005 as onerous — and the price tag of $12 billion as prohibitive; legislators revamp the original act to accommodate the preferences of states

  • Travelers exiting U.S. will have fingerprints scanned

    DHS relaunches a project to scan the fingerprints of international travelers leaving the united States; CBP will take fingerprints exiting the United States from Detroit, while TSA will do the same in Atlanta

  • U.S., Canadian land, sea travelers to face new entry requirements

    The last part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) kicks in Monday; U.S., Canadian land and see travelers entering the United States will have to present a passport or other approved documents; air travelers have already been doing so since 23 January 2007

  • Products block unauthorized RFID reading of contactless cards

    More and more countries and organizations move toward adopting RFID-enabled, biometric e-IDs — driver’s licenses, passports, national IDs, and more; trouble is, these e-documents are susceptible to digital pickpocketing; a U.K. company offers solutions

  • Secure Flight launches today

    Secure Flight is the third version — you may recall CAPPS and CAPPS II — of the U.S. federal government’s decade-old effort to screen commercial airline passengers for risk against terrorist watch lists; it launches today

  • Canceling U.K. national ID scheme will save £400 million annually

    If start up costs of £300 million are included, the U.K. National Identity Scheme will, over a decade, cost government and citizens around £4.3 billion more than the cost of current passports

  • U.K. Home Office lists early ID vendors

    nCipher will be paid about £1.3 million for a contract to provide “public key infrastructure and security related work”; 3M SP&SL will receive about £700,000 plus a fee for each card

  • Some in U.K. government wanted compulsory DNA cards

    In 2003 and 2004, some civil servants considered — and wrote detailed reports about — including DNA or iris biometrics as well as digital photographs in the ID card scheme and the police wanted carrying the cards to be compulsory