Lord Crickhowell: The noble Baroness, as usual, gave a very helpful reply and there may be even more detail in the lengthy document which we have not yet seen. I pursue one aspect of the matter. The noble Baroness took up the point I had anticipated—that we would take all these identification features together. But I do not think she completely answered my point about what I think are termed "false rejects". The report from which I have already quoted points out:

"Where the threshold is set depends upon the situation in which we are using the biometric technology".

Obviously, if we are dealing with access to a country, we want to set a very high standard and therefore we do not mind if there are false rejects, even if they cause inconvenience. But very often we will be dealing with situations where convenience will be much more important and we will not want a lot of false rejects. Is it the Government's intention to have a range of operational factors available to give guidelines? Have they worked out how they are going to deal with the problem of false rejects and set a variety of standards?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. The Committee will have seen that the ability to enhance accuracy has been developed quickly, and we shall continue to hone that. We have more time between the passing of the legislation and the implementation of the measure. I invite the Committee to record that when biometric passports are introduced next year they will primarily use the facial imaging and we will have to continue to hone that. I assure the Committee that we shall try to set the standard so that it can capture the best possible data in relation to biometrics as regards digital, iris and facial. I am pleased that our ability to do that is being enhanced all the time.

I think that copies of my letter have now been given to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. Twenty-four copies have been left in the Printed Paper Office for any other noble Lord who may wish to acquire one.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am trying to help the Committee and the noble Baroness. This is a long, detailed, carefully considered letter of 30 pages, as the noble Baroness says. Is it possible to have a 10-minute break while we read it? Frankly, trying to make sense
 
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of this on the hoof when dealing with amendments makes life extremely difficult. But I am entirely at the mercy of the Committee.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I am very sympathetic to the noble Lord, but I hope that the further information arises out of the issues discussed in our previous debate in Committee. I invite the Committee to press on. If I may respectfully say so, bearing in mind the speed with which we dealt with amendments on the previous occasion and the number of amendments we have to deal with now, I think that we will have sufficient time. I will try to be as clear as I can. If parts of the letter will assist the Committee, I will certainly point those out as we go along, but it is really a case of answering questions that were raised on the previous occasion—some of them will be for another day, but it would be a good idea if we pressed on.

Lord Selsdon: I want to try to help the noble Baroness, as I always have done on this. I commend to the Committee Appendix B of her report, paragraph 17 to the end. It is a pity that my quotation comes at the end and it is a pity that we have not had a chance to read it before. I had the advantage of having it delivered to me expressly. The first page of the report I opened states:

"Can biometrics be forged or 'spoofed'? Studies have shown that biometrics can be 'spoofed' to fool a biometric reader".

That was all that I had time to read in detail, but I commend to the Committee and to everyone the initiative that the noble Baroness has taken. It is a pity that her department could not be a little quicker on its feet.

3.45 pm

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I thank the noble Lord for that. I also thank those officials who have worked so hard on these documents. We tried to get them out as quickly as we could; it was difficult to get them out by Friday. Everyone was e-mailed and everyone had a hard copy sent to them. About 70 copies went out to named Members of the House who had participated previously. I assure noble Lords that we did everything in our power to make sure that the information got to noble Lords as quickly as it could. I apologise if, notwithstanding all our efforts, we failed.

The Earl of Onslow: I suggest to the Commiteee that if we did have 10 minutes off it would probably save considerably more than 10 minutes of us being corrected because we had not read the document or the noble Baroness having to explain things in greater detail; I would certainly like to have 10 minutes. I concede that my presence in the Chamber or absence therefrom for 10 minutes will not make a single difference to the great strategic flow of statutory rivers that we go through, but it would be quite helpful to take up the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.

Lord Williams of Elvel: I got a copy of the letter sent by the noble Baroness, and she has done everything
 
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possible to illuminate the discussions at a previous stage in Committee. This is the first time in Committees of this House that I have had a Minister spell out exactly what the responses were in Committee at an earlier stage. I do not believe that we should go on and on and round about on this. I hope very much that the Committee will resist the idea of going into a 10-minute break, because it will not help the Earl of Onslow.

The Earl of Northesk: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. It is perhaps inevitable that it was a vast discussion about the reliability of biometrics, although I was merely trying to concentrate on the narrow, practical issue. In that regard, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for her kind suggestion that she may consider the passport criteria as the means to resolve the problem. I have been taught to believe that precision in statute is extremely important, and I continue to be concerned that the Bill says only "head and shoulders". Some refusenik might arrive to have his biometric captured and sit with his back to the capture machine, which would be a complete waste of everyone's time. I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, and I am content to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 87 not moved.]

[Amendments Nos. 88 and 89 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

The Earl of Northesk moved Amendment No. 90:

Page 40, line 19, leave out paragraph (c).

The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 90, with the leave of the Committee, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 110 and 171. Amendment No. 90 proposes the deletion of Schedule 1(2)(c). In the context of the scheme, an individual's fingerprints will merely be another digitised biometric, essentially of the same character as those for iris or facial recognition. Therefore, to identify them separately is otiose. My other two amendments, to Clauses 5 and 12 respectively, have the same objective.

Moreover, there is no indication in the Bill precisely what form of fingerprints it is envisaged will be used. Clause 43 defines fingerprint as:

"in relation to an individual . . . a record (in any form and produced by any method) of the skin pattern and other physical characteristics or features of any of his fingers".

The Minister will recall that in response to a Starred Question that I asked about the UK prison estate she alluded to a number of different mixes of biometrics used in that context, including "hand geometry". Any one of a number of routes could be adopted for fingerprints in respect of the scheme, but the Bill is silent on the matter. Will the requirement be limited to a single digit or applied to all 10? Perhaps the Home Office is contemplating full palm prints; presumably that is the same as hand geometry and consistent with criminal fingerprint legislation.
 
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Moreover, as my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate made plain at Second Reading, a distinction has to be made between an analogue and a digitised system. All these factors are linked inextricably to the eventual cost and reliability of the scheme. That in turn means that the form of fingerprint or fingerprints—in fact, the whole range of biometric identifiers to be used in the scheme—should be stated explicitly in the Bill rather than being left to subordinate legislation.

Having said all that, of course I recognise that throughout our debates the Minister has consistently referred to a total of 13 biometric identifiers. This suggests that the Government have already made up their collective mind about the appropriate way forward on the matter. That being so, there is no practical reason why the detail cannot be written into the Bill. I beg to move.