http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050615-113346-6953rEU biometric passports running behind
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Published June 15, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Only six EU countries will meet the U.S. deadline of issuing biometric passports by Oct. 26, while France and Italy have even greater travel document problems.
Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg and Sweden are reported ready to start issuing biometric passports by Oct. 26, while Britain, Ireland, France and Japan have indicated they will not meet the deadline, Washington Technology reported.
Biometric passports contain computer chips with digitized biological information such as facial images and fingerprints.
As a show of softening on the United States' part, in an April 7 letter to the European Commission, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., proposed that passports that met the International Civil Aviation Organization standard in effect in 2002 would be acceptable under the law.
However, passports from France and Italy don't even meet the ICAO standard.