Did you mean irish speaker:Ben Wallace speaker:Ben Wallace?
Ben Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost is of the contract with SAGEM to supply the Iris based immigration system as part of Project Iris.
Ben Wallace: ...gallant Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) about the extra information being brought into the register. I shall argue from a technical point of view. Currently, it is envisaged that the iris scan—one of the pieces of biometric information—might involve a folder size of about 20 kilobytes per individual. That is the biometric data alone. Every time we add a bit more...
Ben Wallace: ...Minister expand on the phrase “other biometric information” in paragraph 2 of schedule 1? “Other biometric information” covers a whole range of issues, from DNA to facial recognition and iris scan. When I had a meeting with officials from the Minister’s Department, as we all had the opportunity to do, we were assured that DNA would not be one of those biometric elements, but...
Ben Wallace: I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman. There is a project under way, which the Home Office has called Project Iris. It is trialling iris readers at 10 locations throughout the country. The running costs for the 10 points are £27.8 million, so while it is of course a pilot, that is some allusion to the cost.
Ben Wallace: ...'s time that another type of biometric can come to the fore. The Government do not want to be hemmed in, but that in itself raises the question why there is so much urgency to have the Bill now. Iris recognition is currently a very expensive method of determining identification. Although I know that Project Iris has a lot more to it than just 10 units around the country, it is still a...
Ben Wallace: ...is predominantly fingerprints. I may be mistaken, but I believe that the Pentagon biometrics store is DNA; it is successful but it is not included in the Bill. The costs are mainly to do with iris and facial recognition. That system is not completely mature in the marketplace, which is why we have doubts about how large the costs may be. That is why we question and probe; we are asking...
Ben Wallace: ...Secretary of State for the Home Department what size data files are being used to store individuals' entry and biometric records for use with the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's Project Iris.
Ben Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the recognition failure rate is of scans carried out in the pilot project Project Iris; (2) what the reliability levels are of the scanning unit deployed in the 10 locations where Project Iris is being piloted.
Ben Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the evaluation of the project IRIS operational pilot.
Ben Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the timetable is for the rollout of IRIS recognition in UK locations.
Ben Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 30 November 2005, Official Report, column 597W, on the IRIS project, when he expects to publish the key findings of the project IRIS operational pilot.
Ben Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his answer of 30 November 2005, Official Report, column 597W, on the IRIS Project, when he will report the key findings to the House; and what elements of the pilot project will be commercially sensitive.
Ben Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what health and safety studies have been carried out on the long-term effects of iris scans conducted as part of biometric data collection.
Ben Wallace: When he will publish the results and his assessment of Project IRIS.