New US papers ‘invasive’

CONCERN was expressed yesterday at the impact on the civil rights of Irish travellers following the latest US security restrictions.

The Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL) said European countries, including Ireland, will have to carry citizens’ private information on high-security passports in order to get into the US.

On Monday the US announced that from October 26 people on visa-waiver programmes must carry new passports containing digital information identifying the holder by his or her unique biometric data, such as fingerprints, face recognition or iris patterns.

Ireland is one of 27 countries on the visa-waiver programme.

“The problem is there is little debate about this, as there has been about other security measures demanded by the US,” said the ICCL’s Malachy Mulligan.

He said there were faults in the technology usedto process this biometricdata.

“They can throw up false positives, so people who have done nothing wrong end up not getting on their flight, unable to travel.”

If a false positive - a positive entry that is an error - occurs in the US, the person could be subject to harsh US terrorist rules.

A Dept of Foreign Affairs spokesman said there was no agreement yet on what information would be included in the passports.