Home Office launches study of electronic passport cards

Credit card-sized passports that activate electronic border controls could be introduced under futuristic alternatives to traditional passports being considered by the Home Office.

Ministers have launched a feasibility study to assess the potential of the "smart cards". Angela Eagle, a Home Office minister, said a card would "offer greater security, could be used as automated border controls and offer a route to speedy passport renewal".

Details of the study came as the Immigration Service backed the world's first trial of iris-recognition equipment to speed people through passport controls simply by staring into a lens. Two thousand people will take part in the trial at Heathrow airport in October, in a study backed by the Immigration Service, Customs and Excise, the British Airports Authority and leading airlines.

The Home Office confirmed that a feasibility study was also underway to examine card-sized passports that could supplement traditional travel documents. The cards could even lead to electronic controls at which travellers would swipe a card to enter the country.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said neither card-sized passports nor eye-recognition machines would replace passports altogether, but said they may be used to help speed up arrivals and departures.

The study was still in a "very, very early stage" and ministers had yet to approve the introduction of the cards, she said.

Ms Eagle, who gave details of the passport cards in Parliamentary written answers, said: "A passport card, if approved by ministers, would provide users with a convenient travel document which can be kept in a wallet or purse." The card could be used to return to Britain if a full passport was lost or stolen, she said. But she also suggested the cards could be used as "a suitable platform for electronic innovations". The trials follow the introduction of small driving licences, which come with a full paper licence.

David Lidington, a shadow Home Office minister, warned that passport cards could "open the door" to European identity cards, a possibility denied by the Home Office. "This is surely a back-door way to introducing an identity card," he said. "All these smart cards are capable of storing a great deal of information, which we might not want government agencies, let alone agencies of other countries, to have access to."

A spokesman for Liberty, the civil rights pressure group, said: "If it came near to an identity card scheme through the back door we would be worried."