First Russians add fingerprints to passports
The Russian Migration Service is ready to issue the first biometric passports with fingerprint data included.
-This is a potentially unified standard with the European Union, Leader of the Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovsky told Russian media. –It is another evidence of our efforts to unify standards with our partners, he added, Interfax reports.
The Migration Service has removed all technical complications linked with the new technology and is ready to start offering the passports to Russian citizens in the course of 2012. The first biometric passports will be issued as part of an experiment, however the large-scale issuing of the new travel documents could start already in the course of the next two years, Romodanovsky confirmed.
The official added that the biometric passports will be issued also to stateless people and people with status as refugees, Newsru.com reports.
As BarentsObserver previously reported, the Federal Migration Service already in 2008 issued the first biometric passports for Russians traveling abroad. However, then the data chips were empty reportedly because the necessary legislation was not yet adopted.
Biometric passports usually include a microprocessor chip and antenna embedded in the front or back cover of the passport. The currently standardized biometrics used for this type of ipassports are facial recognition, fingerprint recognition and iris recognition.
