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Deutsch: Personalausweise in Europa

A new analysis was made public by Statewatch based on the answers to a questionnaire regarding the "state of play concerning electronic identity cards" in the EU Member States and countries that are members of the so-called "Mixed Committee" that is part of Schengen (Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland).

The 23 replies to the questionnaire show that: - 17 countries make it mandatory for their citizens to have an ID card, four do not; - 13 countries issue traditional ID cards, eight issue cards containing contact and/or RFID chips, two countries do not issue ID cards (Norway, UK).

Of the eight countries that issue electronic

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The EU funded European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) issued, on 27 January 2009, its Position Paper on security features in European eID schemes, showing a large disparity between the various systems which might affect their usefulness.

The paper is an analysis of 10 ID card systems already used in EU and 13 under development. The eID cards are presently used mainly in relation to tax declarations and other e-Gov services with some applications in the commercial sector as well, but their application will largely extend in the future.

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The CNIL, the French Data Protection Authority, has published on 20 January 2009 a report on a massive control operation it conducted on the STIC ("Système de traitement des infractions constatées" or "Recorded offences treatment system"), a huge police database. The report reveals that the STIC is consulted by each one of the 100.000 authorised policemen 200 times a year on average. This immediately reminded me the old British Telecom's slogan: "who have you forgotten to call today?"

Police files have been the main concern in France in 2008, especially after the creation, by decrees published on 1st July 2008, of two new intelligence databases, EDVIGE and CRISTINA.

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On 11 October 2008 Prague hosted the DIY Carnival which marched through the city centre in the name of the worldwide initiative "Freedom not Fear".

Starting with a concert of several music groups on the river island Stvanice, more than 1000 people wearing masks outnumbered crowds of tourists on the fancy streets of the Old Town and protested against increasing surveillance within the society.

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The first worldwide protests against surveillance measures such as the collection of all telecommunications data, the surveillance of air travellers and the biometric registration of citizens were held on 11 October 2008 under the motto "Freedom not Fear - Stop the surveillance mania!". In at least 15 countries citizens demanded a cutback on surveillance, a moratorium on new surveillance powers and an independent evaluation of existing surveillance powers.

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In spite of the recommendation of the European Data Protection Supervisor, Peter Hustinx, that the minimum age for fingerprinting should be 14, a spokesperson from the European Commission (EC) expressed on 2 April 2008 the EC intention to push for fingerprinting children starting at the age of six, in order to include the information in the biometric passports.

Jacques Barrot, the Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner, considered that "The proposals we put forward are balanced ones", explaining that fingerprinting was an important tool in fighting human trafficking.

During the meeting on 12 February 2008 the high-level Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum (SCIFA)/Mixed Committee discussed the age

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On 18 March 2008, Peter Neyroud, the chief executive of the UK National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA), told the Commons Home Affairs Committee, during the final evidence session of a year-long inquiry on the surveillance society, that the police was developing a national database of mugshots to be used with face recognition technology that would match CCTV images with offenders.

A pilot system has started with three local police forces that have gathered during the last 18 months a database including more than 750 000 face images. About 7.7 million euro has been allocated so far on developing the technology that will be nationally launched in 2009.

Neyroud stated that he hoped to have the beat police equipped with advanced

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Mr. Richard Thomas, UK Information Commissioner warned Heathrow airport operator BAA that the plans to fingerprint all passengers at the new Terminal 5 may breach the UK Data Protection Act.

The 5.5 billion euro worth Terminal 5 was opened by the Queen on 16 March and is due to receive its first passengers on 27 March 2008. The airport plans to apply security measures that involve fingerprinting all passengers including domestic ones claiming fingerprinting was necessary so that all passengers could mix freely in Terminal 5 shopping mall area. Fingerprinting is already being applied for domestic passengers at Terminal 1. The passengers place a hand on a scanner which records four fingerprints and