Latest news with #biometrics
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Why you might need your fingerprint scanned to go on holiday in Europe
British citizens will be required to have their fingerprints scanned whenever they go to the European Union due to delays in the development of digital biometrics software. Every UK passenger entering the Schengen area will need to exit their car to be photographed and fingerprinted individually. A spokesperson for the Port of Dover, which facilitates transit and trade with countries like France and the Netherlands, told The Independent the plans will be rolled out in the autumn. This is because a new biometric entry-check system for non-EU citizens was expected to be implemented last year, but this has been postponed. The Independent initially reported on the delay to the new system at the end of 2024, with suggestions that the demand for fingerprints may quietly be dropped. Doug Bannister, the port's chief executive, told The Guardian it will be 'business as usual' this summer but said 'a big change' in travel will be phased in from November. An individual's fingerprint or a picture of their face will be checked alongside their passport number on every trip. The technology is being utilised to eliminate "wet stamping" of passports and enable an automated recording of the duration of visitors' stays in mainland Europe. In time, an app installed on UK Border Force tablets is intended to be passed into the car to verify each person's fingerprints. However, Mr Bannister said the app, which has been developed by the EU's border agency Frontex, 'won't be ready any time before November, but hopefully it could come swiftly after that'. Frontex said it was up to each member state to implement its use. Mr Bannister admitted 'second, third, fourth time travellers still need to have a biometric captured at the border'. This means that passengers will still be required to step out of their vehicles every time until the app is ready. There will be significant infrastructure improvements in Kent in an effort to reduce disruptions to cross-border transport. To accommodate passengers getting off cars and buses, the Port of Dover is reclaiming 13 hectares of land. In a solution supported by the UK and French governments, the port said it will create a virtual system around 1.5 miles across the port's surrounding area for checks. Mr Bannister is certain that the upcoming inspections at the port, which handles up to 10,000 trucks and 15,000 passenger cars every day during the summer, will require only an extra six minutes to each trip.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
British travellers to face fingerprint scans on every trip to EU
British citizens will be required to have their fingerprints scanned whenever they go to the European Union due to delays in the development of digital biometrics software. Every UK passenger entering the Schengen area will need to exit their car to be photographed and fingerprinted individually. A spokesperson for the Port of Dover, which facilitates transit and trade with countries like France and the Netherlands, told The Independent the plans will be rolled out in the autumn. This is because a new biometric entry-check system for non-EU citizens was expected to be implemented last year, but this has been postponed. The Independent initially reported on the delay to the new system at the end of 2024, with suggestions that the demand for fingerprints may quietly be dropped. Doug Bannister, the port's chief executive, told The Guardian it will be 'business as usual' this summer but said 'a big change' in travel will be phased in from November. An individual's fingerprint or a picture of their face will be checked alongside their passport number on every trip. The technology is being utilised to eliminate "wet stamping" of passports and enable an automated recording of the duration of visitors' stays in mainland Europe. In time, an app installed on UK Border Force tablets is intended to be passed into the car to verify each person's fingerprints. However, Mr Bannister said the app, which has been developed by the EU's border agency Frontex, 'won't be ready any time before November, but hopefully it could come swiftly after that'. Frontex said it was up to each member state to implement its use. Mr Bannister admitted 'second, third, fourth time travellers still need to have a biometric captured at the border'. This means that passengers will still be required to step out of their vehicles every time until the app is ready. There will be significant infrastructure improvements in Kent in an effort to reduce disruptions to cross-border transport. To accommodate passengers getting off cars and buses, the Port of Dover is reclaiming 13 hectares of land. In a solution supported by the UK and French governments, the port said it will create a virtual system around 1.5 miles across the port's surrounding area for checks. Mr Bannister is certain that the upcoming inspections at the port, which handles up to 10,000 trucks and 15,000 passenger cars every day during the summer, will require only an extra six minutes to each trip.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
UK citizens face fingerprint checks each time they visit EU
British citizens who travel frequently to the EU face having their fingerprints individually checked each time they cross the border into the Schengen area because of delays in developing an app to verify biometrics digitally, it has emerged. It will be 'business as usual' this summer but 'a big change' in travel will be phased in from November, Doug Bannister, the chief executive of the Port of Dover has said. 'Significant infrastructure' including reclaiming 13 hectares of land in the Port of Dover to handle passengers getting out of cars and buses has been put in place to try to minimise disruption, Bannister said. Under the system being built, all car passengers will have to get out of their vehicle to be individually fingerprinted and photographed. On every subsequent journey, a fingerprint or a facial image will be verified along with passport number, in a major shift designed to get rid of 'wet stamping' and allow the number of days British visitors stay in the EU in any given year to be automatically recorded. It is envisaged that an app that can be installed on a border force tablet can be passed into the car for verification of each individual's biometrics. Frontex, the European border agency, has developed the app, but confirmed it was up to each member state to implement its use. 'We have been told that any app won't be ready any time before November, but hopefully it could come swiftly after that,' said Bannister. '[It means] second, third, fourth time travellers still need to have a biometric captured at the border,' he said, meaning passengers will still have to get out of their vehicle for border checks until the app is ready. The ort prides itself on the speed with which it operates. Bannister says it can load and off-load a ferry 'with 120 trucks, 1,000 passengers and a couple of hundred cars in 45 minutes, faster than an A320 at Gatwick'. He is confident the biometric check regime being built will add just six minutes to a car journey. The new regime has presented particular challenges in Dover because the port is hemmed by the cliffs and there is no safe space for car passengers to be checked amid the flow of 10,000 trucks a day crossing the channel. 'In an airport you have a nice, air-conditioned, well-lit hall, and an orderly queue of foot passengers going through. But we needed to cater for a carload of four people on a large, stormy night. So we couldn't have people exit their vehicles [in the ferry queues]. That would be dangerous.' In an extraordinary solution supported by the UK and French governments, Dover will create a virtual frontier system, 1.4 miles across town for border checks on 12 hectares of reclaimed land. Peering down from the western cliffs, the first building to cater for coaches is already in place on a vast swathe of built-up ground currently topped with golden sand. A second bus and a separate car building will be installed in the coming months. To ensure the integrity of the border, buses will have their doors physically sealed with tape while they rejoin regular traffic across Dover town and continue a 1.4-mile journey from the western ferry to board the ferry at the eastern docks. Irregular movements between the biometric border and the ferry board will be monitored by a combination of AI and automatic number plate recognition. It isn't the only change Bannister is expecting in the coming months. He is also hopeful that the reset in the relationship between the UK and the EU will end the environmentally and economically damaging issue of trucks returning to the continent empty. Another byproduct of Brexit, it is estimated that on some days 30% to 40% of trucks have no cargo on them when they return to the continent because of strict checks on fresh food and farm products. These are expected to be scrapped as part of Keir Starmer's reset. With £144bn worth of goods traded over the channel every year, the Port of Dover is of critical economic interest to France and the UK, representing half of the total of UK goods exported to Europe, Bannister said. The EU and the UK have pledged to negotiate a new deal eliminating the checks on food, which will allow small food and farm producers to export to Europe once again.
Al Jazeera
6 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Why the US and Israel are pushing to privatize aid to Gaza
The United States and Israel are backing a new aid initiative in Gaza that critics say sidelines the United Nations and violates humanitarian principles. With biometrics and military ties, is it really about help, or control?
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Forbes
Samsung's Smartphone Palm Print Scan Is More Secure Than Fingerprints
Samsung patents smartphone palm biometrics. When it comes to unlocking your smartphone and validating that it is you, there are already plenty of options for the security-minded user. You could opt for a PIN number, although, as has just been reported, there's a long list of codes that are dangerous to use. Passwords are a bit more cumbersome than PINs, and if you take the easy-to-recall and enter option, then you're probably already on another list to be avoided at all costs. Ha, I hear you say, I use biometrics, so I don't have any security worries or numbers to remember or avoid. Your fingerprint isn't as safe as you likely think, and Samsung is already exploring more secure biometric options, as a new patent for a smartphone palm print recognition system demonstrates. Here's what you need to know. Truth be told, biometrics are a secure and easy-to-use method of validating identity when it comes to unlocking a device, such as your smartphone, regardless of whether you are an iPhone or Android aficionado with a preference for facial or fingerprint recognition. There are, of course, plenty of ways that either can be bypassed by a very determined attacker, but they mostly involve having access to both you and the smartphone in question. Let's discuss some of the more ingenious methods, rather than photos of your face, chopped-off fingers or 3D prints constructed from high-resolution photography. None of which represents much in the way of clear and present danger to the average user, to be honest. In 2018 it was reported that researchers had created a technique called DeepMasterPrints for using machine-learning to create masterkeys containing partial fingerprint images to unlock devices. I can't recall ever hearing of this being exploited in the wild, so I'm guessing we're safe. Then there is brute-forcing fingerprint recognition using a framework called BrutePrint. This was more recent, 2023, but again has amounted to nothing in terms of real-world attacks. So, while faces and fingerprints are good enough, the search for something better is always ongoing. Samsung is spearheading that search with the filing of a European patent for a smartphone-based palm print recognition system. As reported May 25, somewhat ironically, by the excellent people over at Patently Apple, the Samsung patent points to a future where your Galaxy smartphone might use the camera module, along with specialized processors and memory, to obtain 'at least three feature coordinates from a palm image,' to be used together with rotation angles to scan your hand. Palm recognition is generally considered more secure than fingerprint recognition as it covers a broader area and looks deeper than just the surface skin. Most palm print recognition systems scan the patterns of veins under the surface, making them much harder to replicate than your fingerprint or face. I have asked Samsung for further information regarding plans to incorporate the plam print recognition system in future Galaxy device releases.
