UK Borders Bill
4:30 pm
Keith Best: Certainly. You need to know that the identity of those leaving is the identity that they purport to have. That is being done through the fingerprinting system. The biometrics that are being rolled out now are more and more through entry clearance posts overseas. I hope that that will have a marked effect on removing the duplication of applications, so that when someone has been refused in one identity, they are not likely to come back and try to be accepted in another identity. I am told that in Pakistan at the moment there is a lively trade of false exit stamps being put in passports to show that people left the United Kingdom at a particular time when, clearly, they did not. However, that is anecdotal evidence.
There needs to be that check. It is not for me to decide whether that should be the full extent of a chip identity card or whether biometrics—to use the fingerprinting terminology—will be sufficient.