Privacy Fears Over Global Database
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday April 3, 2004
The Australian Privacy Foundation has joined a global campaign to stop the rushed introduction of smart passports based on what it thinks is flawed technology. A meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organisation this week was expected to approve the mandatory inclusion of facial mapping and electronic tagging technology in future passports. But a letter to the organisation by 40 civil liberty groups says that by 2015 the initiative could create biometric databases allowing the details of billions of travellers to be computerised and shared globally, as part of ``a larger surveillance infrastructure monitoring the movement of individuals globally".
Sue Lowe
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald