Sarah speaking about biometric identifiers and visa applications

Speech by Sarah Ludford (rapporteur) delivered to European Parliament on Tue 24th Mar 2009

Madam President, this Commission proposal, on which I am Parliament's rapporteur, is the fourth element of the Visa Information System (VIS) package, coming after the VIS regulation, the VIS access decision and the measure on the use of the VIS under the Schengen Borders Code.

In modifying the existing common consular instructions, it provides firstly for the obligation to supply biometrics which will be stored in the VIS and the standards for doing so, but secondly it includes provisions on the organization of receiving visa applications.

A complete revision of the visa rules is foreseen with the visa code on which my ALDE Group colleague, Henrik Lax, is rapporteur. Once adopted, this piece of legislation which we are now discussing will become an integral part of the visa code. The underlying rationale for separating the proposals was that the Commission expected the adoption of the visa code to take longer than the present proposal, and they did not want the adoption of the visa code to hold up the launch of the VIS.

It is my understanding that the central system for the VIS will be ready by December this year and could start operating in the first region, North Africa, in early 2010. I have been negotiating with the Council for quite a long time. The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted my report in November 2007. Unfortunately we could not get a first-reading agreement, so in July 2008 I asked Parliament to endorse my report; however, during the French Presidency we were able to make sufficient progress for me to be able to recommend adopting this compromise at second reading.

We had four outstanding issues: the age limit for fingerprinting; encouraging Member States to cooperate while permitting contracts with external providers as a last resort; data protection and security; and a service fee for external providers.

On fingerprinting the Commission proposed to start fingerprinting children at six years old. In fact fingerprints of young children are subject to rapid change, and I have not been persuaded that enough is yet known about the reliability in later years of prints taken so young. Despite many requests, I was never provided with credible substantive evidence about how fingerprints taken between six and twelve years of age could be the basis for verification or identification many years later without the risk of mistakes.

The Council's reaction at one stage was to propose fingerprinting young children every two years instead of five years, as is the case with adults, but that would be hugely inconvenient for families. So I insisted on a prudent and practical approach, taking a higher minimum age of twelve years, and the Council did agree to exempt children under twelve, with a review of this age limit after three years following a detailed study under the responsibility of the Commission.

I now turn to the issue of encouraging Member State cooperation while permitting external providers. I do not have any problems with the general concept of outsourcing, but there must be secure conditions to ensure the integrity of the visa-issuing process, to ensure that outsourcing is only a last resort and that data protection and security are guaranteed.

We therefore succeeded in writing into the text a hierarchy whereby cooperation by means of limited representation, co-location or common application centres is the first choice, and only where those solutions are not appropriate to cope with a high number of applicants or secure a good geographical coverage does outsourcing come into play. The compromise makes clear that Member States remain responsible for compliance with data protection rules and for any breaches of national law.

An important element is that, in third states that prohibit encryption, special rules apply: electronic transfer of data between consulates or between an external service provider and the Member State would be banned, and Member States would have to ensure that the electronic data is transferred physically in fully encrypted form on a CD which has special conditions attached to it.

Lastly, on the visa fee, we have successfully insisted, as a condition for the external provider's imposing a service fee on top of the visa fee, that visa applicants should always have the possibility of direct access to the consulate offices. I think that is very important.

Overall we have a reasonable deal. Compromises were hard-fought, and I think we have made a step forward on the common visa policy.