Earl of Erroll
Main Page: Earl of Erroll (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Earl of Erroll's debates with the Home Office
(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Jones
The Government entirely agree with my noble friend that passport security is extremely important, and we intend to ensure that security. However, our view is that the interests of the country are not well served by the Government starting to maintain a database of all passport holders, which amounts to 80 per cent of the population.
The Earl of Erroll
I welcome the fact that biometrics will not be kept on the national identity register—this is essential—but we ought to have biometrics in passports which match ICAO standards to make it easier to travel. We should not be frightened of that as long as they are not held centrally.
Baroness Neville-Jones
We agree that it is extraordinarily important that passports should have adequate security, and we believe that British passports with the single facial recognition biometric will achieve those standards. There are actually a number of countries other than the United Kingdom that do not have plans to introduce a second biometric.