UK Borders Bill

It may well be that I have to conduct some longer correspondence than I had hoped on these points. As ever, the noble Lord has come up with some questions to which I do not yet have an answer. In general terms, we need to continue to develop the technologies that the noble Lord referred to, but this is something that, as the noble Lord said, would be practical for development in the future. We intend to keep iris recognition technology under review. However, the provisions in the EU biometric residence permit regulations currently relate only to face and fingerprint recognition. On double checking, there is a possibility of child X—who is actually child Y—being cared for by one adult, which would be double checked when applying for a BID. That element is there in the way in which this will work. I am happy to consider further the points that the noble Lord has raised. Perhaps it is worth adding that, considering the EC regulation, it will require us to use fingerprint and facial recognition, largely because it is tried and tested and because we have existing databases to check against. We will of course keep our minds open regarding iris recognition technology. The other point was about age. Currently, a child of five or over who applies for a visa is fingerprinted. That is under our existing regulations.