Biometrics in Europe - Trend Report 2006

After 9 months operation (October 2005 to June 2006) this first trend report is based on the output from the European Biometrics Portal (EBP)

Some of the main trends are highlighted here. A second report will complement this first one by the end of 2006.

The development of Biometrics is an outcome of globalisation, which is not only technological, but also political and economic: the world is now a global place for commerce, migrations, trusted exchanges of all kind of information and values. This creates new opportunities as well as new risks, crises, frauds, illegal traffics or even terrorism. Measures to address these new risks are also questioned, mainly regarding the balance between privacy and security.

After positioning the context of biometrics adoption in the EU, (section 2) the report analyses the technological trends, regarding fingerprint, face recognition, voice, iris and other new technologies such as vein pattern (section 3).

In section 4, it explores the legal aspects and main applications of biometrics in Europe. This section illustrates one of the most difficult aspects of the question that is «progressing» on various «fronts» at the same time: law, technology and standards, societal acceptance and concerns.

Ethical trends are highlighted in section 5, taking as an example the use cases developed during the eJustice project: to what extent could technological innovation be applied without taking the time of supporting a democratic debate?

For not doing so, or for providing inappropriate justifications (e.g. the fight against terrorism) many large e-Government projects have been re-worked, re-processed, re-scheduled or re-sized causing delays (2, 3 years and more) and industry deceptions regarding the market size and timing (budget slipping, as explained in section 6).

Last, section 7 of the report is a summary concerning our 25 Member States, mainly regarding the adoption of biometric passports, ID cards or other biometric documents in the area of transportation, payments, health, sport events etc.

Source : European Biometrics Portal

Download at PDF format

Biometrics in Europe - Trend Report 2006