Siemens is making border crossings in Europe more secure through biometric systems that store individual characteristics such as fingerprints and facial photos on a chip integrated into a passport.  
The systems have already been installed in several countries. The data is read at a passport checkpoint and compared with a live digital photo of the traveler, thereby making it practically impossible to travel with a false passport. The system software was developed in the Biometrics Center in Graz, Austria.
Switzerland introduced biometric passports in September 2006, and Siemens IT Solutions and Services recently provided a solution for producing so-called e-passports to the Czech Republic. To this end, SIS equipped some 230 passport control stations in that country with around 600 photo stands, passport scanning machines, and printers, as well as corresponding IT systems. In the future, an ultra-thin RFID chip equipped with an antenna will be embedded into Czech passports.
The chip will store personal data such as the passport holder’s name and date of birth, as well as a digital photo and fingerprint that will be read by special scanning devices at border crossings. The traveler’s actual fingerprint will be read by a fingerprint scanner, while his or ...   more »

Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter
Also from Sarah Baxter: Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid | Israelis 'blew apart Syrian nuclear cache' | Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike | Alan Greenspan: "Blair was clearly an aide to Brown"
Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.
The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.
They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north.
Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. A senior American source said the administration sought proof of nuclear-related activities before ...   more »

By Humphrey Hawksley
The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game.
"Five nine, five ten," said the research student, pushing down a laptop button to seal the measurement. "That's your height."
"Spot on," I said.
"OK, we're freezing you now," interjected another student, studying his computer screen. "So we have height and tracking and your gait DNA".
"Gait DNA?" I interrupted, raising my head, so inadvertently my full face was caught on a video camera.
"Have we got that?" asked their teacher Professor Rama Chellappa. "We rely on just 30 frames - about one second - to get a picture we can work with," he explained.
Tracking individuals
I was at the University of Maryland just outside Washington DC, where Professor Chellappa and his team are inventing the next generation of citizen surveillance.
They had pushed back furniture in the conference room for me to walk back and forth and set up cameras to feed my individual data back to their laptops.
Gait DNA, for example, is creating an individual code for the way I walk. Their ...   more »

The California legislature recently banned employers from mandating RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) implants for their employees.  While I’m glad I’m covered in my state, why isn’t this ban being implemented at the Federal level to cover every citizen?  I’m not suggesting that we ban the devices; I’m suggesting that no one should be forced to stick on of these in their body just to get a job.  I’ve covered the issue of RFID many times before and I’m not fundamentally opposed to RFID technology or RFID implants, but I do oppose the idea that anyone should be forced to implant one in their body and it would be just as offensive if my employer asked me to tattoo a bar code on to my forehead.
It would be just as offensive if my employer asked me to tattoo a bar code on to my forehead
Verichip RFID implants are worthless from a security standpoint because they’re essentially passing clear text data over the radio waves and it can easily be cloned. If it’s cloned, you’ll have to undergo knife treatment to get a new one unless the chip is reprogrammable.  Even if Verichip stopped using clear text authentication and switched ...   more »

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Euro passports and ID cards could be on the way under new powers written into the EU Treaty, it was disclosed yesterday.
The Daily Telegraph has learned that existing safeguards preventing EU interference with national identity documents have been quietly dropped.
advertisementSources close to negotiations suggest that Britain has allowed the safeguards to be removed in order to participate in EU security measures, such as biometric passports and ID cards.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "Gordon Brown has absolutely no democratic mandate to sign Britain up to a possible Euro ID card scheme.
"It illustrates how important it is that the British people have their promised say on this treaty."
Derek Scott, chairman of the I Want A Referendum campaign, said: "Under the Constitutional Treaty, work on harmonisation of identity documents would gain momentum.
"The EU is doing a lot of radical things in this area with far too little scrutiny, so it's no wonder that many people are uncomfortable with this."
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without license. For the full copyright statement see Copyright  
Original ...   more »