Some 'technical and operational issues' still to be resolved
Plans to add biometric fingerprint security controls into all UK visas will cost an estimated £77 million, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has disclosed for the first time.
The scheme could also be expanded to incorporate further biometric technologies, such as iris and facial scans, as are being considered for the Government's identity cards project.
As part of its General Election manifesto commitments on immigration and asylum, the Government announced that by 2008, those needing a visa to enter the UK would be fingerprinted.
The FCO said in its annual report, published on 8 June, that the UK was already committed by EU regulations to introducing biometrics into the worldwide visa operation, probably by the end of 2007.
To take this forward, the FCO is working on expanding the rollout systems to capture biometric data from all visa applicants - already in operation in several countries since 2003.
"This will involve extending UKvisa's current fingerprinting operations to all posts that issue visas and also possibly using other biometrics such as facial images and iris scans in the future", the report said.
The FCO said that it had experienced "a number of technical and operational issues" in overseas trials of finger-scanning. Despite efforts to resolve the problems, "there are still some outstanding", it acknowledged.
"From our experience of fingerprinting in a variety of posts in East Africa we have learned we can safely scan fingerprints within our outsourced operations", the report states. "And there have been fewer asylum claims from the nationalities affected and a slight reduction in visa applications."
According to figures in the FCO's report, visa applications in 2003-4 worldwide rose by 14 per cent to 2.2 million, with provisional figures for 2004-5 showing a further 16 per cent increase.
The Department said the UK's visa service has now set up a programme management team to look at the issues of scanning biometrics worldwide and started work on planning and implementation.
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