D3.6: Study on ID Documents

Title: LEGAL SOURCES WITH RESPECT TO RFID

According to the Council Regulation of 13 December 2004 and the Commission Decision of 28 February 2005 the RFID chip has been chosen as the storage medium for the European Passport (usually called ‘electronic’ or ‘biometric’ passport). Although the aforementioned Council Regulation does not apply to identity cards issued by Member States to their nationals or to temporary passports and travel documents having validity of 12 months or less, The Hague Programme requested the development of minimum standards for national identity cards. To this direction the United Kingdom, having at that time the presidency of the Council of the European Union, proposed the incorporation of biometric identifiers inserted in the new identity cards in a radio frequency chip. However the Belgian government has already entered a reservation on the use of fingerprints and RFID chips on the ID cards.