Swiss Passport Vote Wins Majority

Swiss voters approved of the new electronic passport and a central fingerprint register.

Final results show supporters with 5,500 votes more than opponents – making this one of the closest results in recent Swiss history.

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the new passport, equipped with an electronic chip containing a portrait picture and two fingerprints of the holder, would bring Swiss travel documents up to the highest level and speed up the passport procedure.

She added that the result would allow Switzerland to continue its cooperation with the European Union over security, visa policy and travel freedom.

"We will do our best to ensure that personal data in the fingerprint register is secure," she told a news conference on Sunday.
She said she was aware of the considerable but unspecified concerns among citizens about the state storing personal data.

Under a European single-border area treaty members, including Switzerland, must introduce so-called biometric passports by March 2010. The United States has also made such documents a prerequisite for visa-free entry into the country. More than 50 countries have introduced biometric passports but Switzerland is one of the few European countries to store fingerprints in a central database.

Source:

swissinfo

http://www.swissinfo.ch