Canada Joins Move to Electronic Passports to Improve Security

MONTREAL (CP) -- The International Civil Aviation Organization expects that machine readable passports will be universally issued by 2010, as a way to speed air passenger flows and reduce terrorism.

Of the 110 states that already have such passports, more than 40 plan to upgrade by the end of 2006 to a biometrically enabled version that identifies passport holders by their unique faces.

Canada, which has had machine-readable passports for many years, will start to issue biometric or electronic passports by next summer or fall, a spokeswoman for Passport Canada said Thursday.

Therese Boisclair, attending a two-day symposium on the subject at ICAO headquarters in Montreal, said the first biometric passports would be issued on a trial basis to frequent fliers.

Biometric or e-passports contain a chip with a photo of the holder. A device at an airport or border crossing would scan the passport to ensure the photo is the same as the one in a central data base, to confirm in seconds that it is the same person.

''We're going to go with selected participants, people who travel a lot, to see if it works,'' explained Boisclair.

''The basic question is how many countries will have the reader machine, and that becomes an issue. When countries have the reader we'll be able to evaluate how it works.''

While ICAO set the standards for electronic passports, several companies have the technologies required to make them work, such as BioDentity Systems Corp. of Ottawa.

BioDentity CEO Joel Shaw, who made a presentation at the symposium, said his company has sold its biometric equipment to several countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and New Zealand, and hopes to be in line to supply Canada once this country starts to issue e-passports.

The first to issue e-passports will be the 26 countries required by the United States to equip all new passports with electronic chips starting this October. Those countries enjoy visa-free travel rights to the U.S..

Canada has a special status with the U.S. that does not require visas or, at this point, electronic passports.

In his opening remarks to the symposium, president Assad Kotaite said close to 2 billion passengers a year now fly on scheduled and non-scheduled flights, and the projection is for continued growth.

''The facilitation and security challenges faced by civil aviation today are greater than ever,'' Kotaite said.

He said some 79 countries still do not even issue machine-readable passports, much less electronic ones, sometimes because they lack the resources.

Since the entire aviation system and its security stand to benefit from universal use, ICAO is ready to help those countries adopt them, as it has previously helped poorer states improve air traffic control, he said.

''In a more congested and dangerous world, our global challenge is the creation of a 'smart security control' to facilitate the flow of people through border controls in a secure manner, while at the same time giving due consideration to an individual's concerns about dignity and privacy,'' Kotaite said.

ICAO is an agency of the United Nations that sets standards and regulations for aviation safety and efficiency among its 188 contracting states.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press