India set to issue biometric passports next year
The Indian government has decided to introduce fingerprint-enabled biometric passports, and they look set to appear late 2007.
Aiming to cut down on the misuse of passports, these biometric documents will first be issued in the category of diplomatic and official passports, later becoming available to the general public.
“Whenever anybody with this passport approaches an immigration officer, he will be required to put his finger print on the computer window. If the finger print matches, the person is cleared,” an official said.
Introduction of this system will involve massive computerisation and the task has been entrusted to the government-owned National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has also decided to introduce a system wherein a sticker, carrying all relevant information of its holder, would be pasted on passports.
Source - NDTV