UK Borders Bill

We were very grateful for the Minister’s letter, in which he argued that recording biometrics helps to combat human trafficking, particularly of children who may be smuggled into the UK using other children’s identities. The noble Lord rightly repeated that argument, which we take very seriously. We agree that the debate on human trafficking, which your Lordships held last week, was a very useful contribution to the joint working of all parties in all sections of the community in supporting the Government’s actions against trafficking. The Minister said in that debate, and the noble Lord repeated, that the BID will help us to be certain of children’s identity. In the near future, however, everyone entering the UK from outside the EEA will have a biometric visa; so a child entering openly through a port could not take on another child’s identity at that point. Nor would there be any point in the child’s carers doing so when applying for a BID, as, having entered legitimately, the child would be entitled to a BID in his own right. On the other hand, if the child has entered clandestinely, the trafficker could not obtain a BID for him because his biometrics would not match those on the database, although one must enter the caveat that the EU says that sufficiently reliable technology is not yet available for the one-to-many searches requirement, as I said before. We agree that a parent or guardian should be given the responsibility for ensuring that the child has a BID, including the process of taking the biometrics for that purpose. Here we return to the question of the minimum age at which it is useful to take a child’s biometrics in the light of the evidence that was given to the Public Bill Committee of the changes that occur in the child’s fingerprints in the years before he reaches the age of 16. I reiterate that the committee was told that this would not have been an issue if the iris had been chosen as the principal biometric, because the iris remains constant from a very early age. It seems that it was decided to go down the fingerprint route because it was convenient for matching up with the police legacy systems. That is very unfortunate because iris technology looks to be the winner in the long run. It has already been adopted successfully by the immigration authorities in Dubai, by the British Airports Authority, and by several other airport authorities around the world to authenticate passengers entering fast-track processes. As the Bill stands, there will be nothing to prevent us from using iris recognition later on, but as I asked before, is the Home Office doing any work on this so that we are not committed for ever to what may become obsolescent technology? The age at which a parent will have to apply for a BID on behalf of a child has not yet been determined, but from our previous discussions it will certainly be less than 16, and it may be as low as five or six. I asked the noble Lord, and perhaps he can tell the Committee, what the age limit is at present for biometric visas in overseas posts. Is it the intention of the Government to align the minimum age requirement for visas and BIDs? Whatever age is chosen as the minimum for biometrics, will there be arguments about age determination similar to those that we have now about whether a child is over or under the age of 18? If the visa and BID minimum age is the same, any disputes would arise in the country of origin, because once the fingerprints of a child had been taken for visa purposes, it would presumably follow that they could be taken for BIDs.