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MAC revising law to allow biometric technology use

Government authorities have started revising laws to permit the use of a biometric verification method for identifying Chinese citizens upon their entry to the country, the nation's top China affairs agency said.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) announced on Thursday that in keeping with international developments in upgrading technology used in personal identification, the agency hoped to complete revising the law by the end of this year.

Article 10-1 of the Statute Governing Relations between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) currently requires Chinese citizens wishing to enter Taiwan for family union and residency to be fingerprinted.

Yang Chia-chun (楊家駿), director of MAC's Department of Legal Affairs, said the fingerprint identification method was already outdated and should be combined with the use of facial biometric verification, a far more efficient and convenient way to verify the identity of a traveler at a customs checkpoint.

Yang said the country was about to lift the ban on allowing ordinary Chinese tourists to travel to Taiwan, but the mass arrival of the Chinese visitors could impose a burden on national security.

"We need a better security mechanism to cope with the arrival of the Chinese. Biometric verification is a method that is not only consistent with the current trend but also is a less intrusive way to obtain the bio-data of a person comparing with fingerprinting or scanning a person's iris," Yang said.

He said there are about 2,000 facial biometric characteristics in the area around eyes and the nose and such data could be retrieved from a passport-size photo and then be saved in the chip of an electronic passport.

Yang said a number of countries, including Australia, Holland, the UK, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Singapore and Pakistan, had started using the electronic passport, which contains chips with the biometric information of an individual, at their immigration control facilities.

The data shows that verifying a person's iris and fingerprints requires 3.5 seconds and 2.5 seconds respectively, while it only takes 1 second to process using facial biometric verification, Yang said.

In addition to using biometric verification for Chinese tourists, Chinese spouses and Chinese fishermen working from Taiwanese ports may still be required to deliver their fingerprint and iris records to the authorities for more detailed identification.

Currently the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also in the process of reviewing passport regulations in order to upgrade Republic of China passports to electronic ones incorporating biometric verification technology, the official said.
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