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Harveys of Halifax

We can beat the passport fakers: Government urged to look at way to stop identity theft

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Published Date: 01 March 2010
A LEADING technology trade association has written to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to open a debate on improved protection for British Passport holders.
Halifax-based AIM UK, with around 50 member companies across the country who specialise in automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies, said identity theft in the form of faked British passports was preventable.
The not-for-profit organisation has written to foreign secretary David Miliband amid the current controversy over faked passports allegedly used by Israeli intelligence group Mossad to assassinate a Palestinian Hamas leader.
AIM UK, based at The Old Vicarage, All Souls Road, Halifax, said innovative technology natural feature identification, which takes a "fingerprint" of a document's fibres, would make forgery of passports and other documents virtually impossible.
Professor Anthony Furness, a leading expert in this area and AIM UK's technical director based at Halifax, said: "The use of faked British passports has caused outrage and raised serious concerns about fraudulent use, forgery and identity theft.
"The fact that fake passports are being produced and are passing scrutiny suggests inherent flaws in the documents and the systems that handle them.
"To a high degree of statistical confidence these natural fibre "finger prints" can be taken from any pages of the document and distinguished from any other passport."
AIM UK's members are leading manufacturers and systems integrators of AIDC technologies, which radically improve business efficiency.
These technologies include barcodes, 2D codes, radio frequency identification, biometrics, smartcards and voice recognition.
AIM's president Ian Smith said: "If the Government behaves as governments in this country normally do, we will probably not hear anything.
"It's a great pity they are not paying attention to technologies that could make such a significant difference to the health and security of this country.
"The message is not getting through."
The organisation's attempts to lobby for technologies to be used in the NHS, which the Government accepted could reduce errors from one million to half a million, and reduce unnecessary deaths by 50 per cent, was not acted upon.
"With a £2 billion investment, it could have saved £3 to 5 billion every year," said Mr Smith.
"These technologies improve productivity, efficiency and profitability."
AIM is working on a number of European projects.

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  • Last Updated: 01 March 2010 4:05 PM
  • Source: n/a
  • Location: Halifax
 
 

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