US airports use biometric checks

Millions of passengers leaving United States' airports face mandatory fingerprinting under new security guidelines, The Guardian newspaper reports.

Passengers who travel to and from the US will have to present their index fingers - as well as their passports - at check-in, from the end of next year, according to a senior security official.

Michael Jackson, the deputy secretary of the department of homeland security, said the procedure would apply to all passengers and airlines flying out of the US, as the country accumulates a mass of information on every person travelling through America. "What we are trying to say is that it's not enough to give biographical data. We will need biometric as well as biographical data."

A survey of local education authorities (LEAs) discovered 285 schools regularly fingerprint pupils and store their biometric details on record, adding the real figure could be higher, reports politics.co.uk.

Despite this, the Department for Education and Skills has not issued any guidance on when and how biometric data should be collected and stored. Only a quarter of LEAs have any guidance available and in the vast majority of cases do not know if parental consent was given to collect fingerprints.

A Liberal Democrats education spokeswoman, Sarah Teather, said: "These figures confirm an extremely worrying situation where schools are fingerprinting pupils without any guidance on whether it is legal to do so.

Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG), the Georgia Ports Authority and Savi Networks announced plans to launch an RFID-based network that automatically tracks the location and security of containerised cargo transported between the Port of Shanghai in China and the Port of Savannah in Georgia, CargoNewsAsia reports.

Called the "Shanghai-Savannah Express Trade Lane Project", the companies announced their partnership plans at the third annual China Trade and Logistics Conference held at the Savannah International Trade and Convention Centre.

SIPG and Savi Networks have jointly developed a localised China RFID solution that includes electronic seal and GPS integrated handheld for this project. The solution will be built upon an open, international standards-based network platform.

The European RFID market is set to achieve significant progress, given its past and existing initiatives in retail, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics and anti-counterfeiting measures, as well as the increasing investments in this space, MoreRFID reports.

While this market has not demonstrated growth to the same extent as the RFID market in the US, it is nevertheless poised for growth. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan finds that the markets earned revenue of $41 million in 2006, and estimates this will reach $181.8 million in 2013.

There is a strong case for RFID in places where the unit cost is high, and also in places where inventory loss is widespread. Likely growth segments for RFID middleware will be in the areas of drug manufacturing and tracking, medical equipment tracking in hospitals and asset tracking.

Australia's official opposition party says their government has delayed introducing its smart card policy because of community opposition, ABC Newsonline reports. The government announced the health and social services access card may not be introduced until next year.

Labour's human services spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek has told the Australian Smart Card Summit in Sydney that the Government-proposed access card is too expensive and there are still privacy concerns.

"What happened yesterday was a bit of excess baggage that we've ditched from the saddle bags on the way to an election," she said. "I think this proposal has been jettisoned because it's been publicly unpopular, not because of the technology, but because of the whole framework that has been presented to the public."