Privacy International has expressed grave concern about new Dutch legislation for extended compulsory identification. From 1 January 2005 every Dutchman (and tourist) 14 years and older will have to wear ID, and can be fined up to 2.250 euro for not immediately showing ID when asked to do so by any police official, or related officials, such as foresters and custom officials.

A new government advertising campaign, launched this week, is targeted at children between 14 and 18, to make sure they buy an identity card in time. Officially the Netherlands only have an obligation to show ID when asked, but in the campaign children are told flat-out they have to always wear ID.

Last year Privacy International already warned that the identity legislation would violate both the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child. Seeing the new campaign, PI warned that the campaign was an 'underhanded' attempt to convince innocent citizens to forego their legal rights. A legally enforced requirement to carry identification would invite a challenge in the European Court of Human Rights, says Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International.

The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) will vote today in Strasbourg on two important reports on the introduction of biometric identifiers in EU travel documents. Both reports - on "Visas, residence permits: uniform format, photo, biometric identification" and on "Biometrics in EU citizens' passports" are shepherded by MEP Carlos Coelho, a member of the Conservative Group from Portugal.

But even while the Parliament is preparing to vote on the report, the European Council is dealing with a proposal that would make the Parliament's vote void, requiring all Member States to take fingerprints off all of their citizens applying for EU travel documents. The European Union's Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, who are meeting today in Luxembourg, are even discussing an extremist proposal from Britain and Germany to introduce iris scans as a third identifier that Member States may introduce if they chose to do so.

The Europarl Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) today organised a hearing with experts on biometrics. In his opening remarks the MEP Carlos Coelho (Conservative, Portugal) said he generally agreed with the objective of securing people's identities, but has some doubts about adding biometric identifiers to travel documents. Coelho is the rapporteur on 3 different reports for the European Parliament involving the inclusion of biometric features in personal documents.

After listening to what the four experts had to tell him, Mr. Coelho's closing remarks sounded somewhat more critical: "Technological solutions seem handy sometimes, but may hide the new problems they may be causing.

While the contrary can also apply - technology being blocked because measures to work around the problem don't come to the surface - we must make sure that there is a fair balance between the values of security and of freedom. None of the two may be sacrificed for the other." In the two-and-a-half hours that lay between the two remarks, four experts had warned unanimously for the unforeseeable effects of what could be a premature introduction of a technology not yet ready for wide-spread application. Julian Ashbourn who acts as an adviser to the British, U.S. and Japanese governments on biometrics, warned that the focus was presently too much on technological aspects of biometrics, while societal impacts that would inevitably concern the present-day generation as well as our grandchildren were largely undiscussed. In the public discussion, assumptions on the values of biometrics were being made that were simply false - like believing that biometrics could prove that a person actually is who she or he claims to be. "History will show", Mr. Ashbourn said, "that certain assumptions involving biometrics will prove to be ill founded." If related biometric-related initiatives were poorly conceived, states risked the alienation of responsible citizens. Much more discussion, M. Ashbourn argued, was needed before biometrics had sufficient acceptance to be widely implemented - a 25 year time frame would be realistic.

The Article 29 Working Party (all the EU Data Protection Authorities) has released an opinion on the inclusion of biometrics in visa and residence permits for third country nationals. The EU is planning to introduce biometric identifiers in visa and residence permits and to establish a information system on visas (VIS).

The visa and permits will have a contact-less chip which will contain a full-face digital photograph of the holder together with two digital fingerprints.

The Working Party expresses great reservations towards the plans, especially with regard to proportionality issues. The Working Party considers the use of biometrics to establish a more reliable link between visas or residence permits and their holders as legitimate. But a plan to store the biometric identifiers not only in the chip but also in a central database causes major difficulties.

In an interview with The Times newspaper on 16 August, the UK Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, has warned against the danger of 'sleepwalking into a surveillance society', as a result of ID cards and other plans. Mr Thomas said he was also uneasy about plans for a population register and a database of every child. He used General Franco's Spain as an example of what can happen when a state knows too much about its citizens.

Thomas said, although he is not for or against an ID card scheme itself,he was concerned about the government's failure to spell out their exact purpose. "The government has changed its line over the last two or three years as to what the card is intended for. You have to have clarity. Is it for the fight against terrorism? Is it to promote immigration control? Is it to provide access to public benefits and services?"

The Swiss data protection authorities and several political parties have used a governmental consultation round to protest against a proposal to introduce a new sectoral ID number for persons, the SPIN law.

According to the privacy authorities, the proposed law violates both constitutional and data protection principles. The new personal identification number would be sectoral and based on a central server within the federal justice department. But the sectors are not clearly defined or even analysed, thus violating the principle of proportionality.

To make it worse, the responsibilities for access, for security, transmission and usage of the PIN are not sufficiently clear. "This results in a lack of transparency and absence of indispensable protection measures." The privacy authorities demand a serious public debate and find the schedule for parliamentary debate (in the winter of 2004) much too early.

Advocates, politicians and lawyers from across the political spectrum met in London on 19 May 2004 to debate UK ID card legislation. EDRi members Privacy International and FIPR organised the meeting, which heard resounding criticism of the government's ID card plans.

Highlights included the Shadow Home Secretary asking "how on earth can ID cards prevent terrorism if foreign visitors can wander around the streets for three months", alongside the Assistant Information Commissioner's concerns that "a whole identity system is being proposed for the UK".

The meeting also saw the launch of the No2ID campaign. Privacy International, FIPR, Liberty, Stand, the Liberal Democratic party, the 1990 Trust and Statewatch are co-ordinating their opposition to the ID card plans, and are planning to derail the government's legislation when it is introduced later this year.

Revising the Polish Telecommunication Act to implement the EU e-communication directives, the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure introduced a new obligation for mandatory identification of buyers of pre-paid GSM-cards. The proposal is brought as an anti-terrorism measure. State officials immediately acknowledged that the ID-demand would not make pre-paid cards totally anonymous, referring to the vivid trade in stolen phones, but said it was necessary to make it more difficult to use GSMs for illegal purposes. The wording of the proposal was so general that a number of Polish internet portal-sites feared it would oblige them to register the ID of every free e-mail user. Reuters reported on 31 May they had sent a protest letter to the lawmakers. "The desire of Polish lawmakers to treat e-mail providers in the same way as telecoms operators is totally incomprehensible to us," said the letter from portals Interia, Onet and Agora's gazeta.pl service.