No budget for biometrics

6.20pm - by PETER GRIFFIN

The Budget allowed an additional $9.6 million to bolster anti-terrorism and security measures, but no money was put aside to develop biometrics, technology which is seen by many countries as the key defence against terrorism.

The bulk of the extra funding will go into developing the Immigration Service's Advanced Passenger Processing (APP) system - a computer network also being developed by the Australians which is expected to be up and running sometime in the next year.

Immigration Service chief operating officer Andrew Lockhart said the system would be used in cities people were leaving from bound for New Zealand, and would cross-reference visas and other travel documents with information stored about them in databases.

"It allows for people who aren't supposed to come here, not to even be boarding the plane," he said.

He said APP would eventually be able to accept information obtained from biometrics - systems that identify travellers by their biological traits and can range from digital signatures to digital thumbprints and iris, palm or face scans.

"I believe that stuff is going on in America, but we haven't got that far yet," added Lockhart.

While the New Zealand Customs Service has been looking closely at biometrics technologies, including a system being trialed in Sydney airport which scans the faces of travellers, it received no funding to specifically adopt the technology itself.

Most of the extra $3 million Customs receives in the next year will be spent on hiring 30 new staff and improving its computer system, said spokeswoman Janice Rodenburg. Spending on biometrics could come out of Customs' overall budget she said, but Customs was just examining overseas examples of biometrics at this stage.

The Australian Government in its Budget delivered earlier this month, earmarked $3 million to trial "facial biometric identifier" technology that will compare people's faces with the photographs in their passports.

The cost of introducing biometric identifiers was to be partially funded by an increase in the cost of passports. The cost of a 10-year passport would rise by A$8 to A$144.

The United States Government has spent millions setting up biometrics projects, mainly focussing on airport security, in their wake of the September terrorist attacks. Trials of various biometric readers are also taking place at several major European airports.

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