Die Verordnung stellt sich gegen das Votum des Europaparlaments, das sich gegen die Aufnahme von mehr als einem biometrischen Merkmal ausgesprochen hatte. Deutsche Parlamentarier haben kritisiert, dass die Regierungsvertreter mit dieser Entscheidung aus Brüssel die nationalen Parlamente übergangen hätten. Auch die European Digital Rights-Initiative EDRi kritisiert die Einführung biometrischer Pässe und betont die Gefahren von Identitätsklau, Eingriff in die Privatssphäre und demokratischen Rechte der EU-Bürger: “It is good to hear that the EU Council of Ministers has heeded the concerns of privacy advocates and let go of its plans to establish a gigantic database of EU citizens‘ and residents biometric data. Still, this proposal remains more than problematic. The Governments of the EU Member States are trading their citizens‘ fundamental right to privacy in for a promise of security that will not live up to expectations. Biometrics technologies based on face scans, like the one that the EU plans to introduce in a year and a half, still have gigantic failure rates, and the social effects of their introduction have not been discussed at all. The RFID chips that will be embedded on EU passports are insecure; they can be read out by criminals, which will set off a wave of high-tech identity theft. By blackmailing the European Parliament into passing this proposal without due time for debate, the Council has exploited the democratic deficits of the EU to the extreme. This anti-democratic procedure was worthy of a law that disrespects EU citizen’s privacy.!” kommentiert Andreas Dietl von der EDRi. http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/04/st15/st15152.en04.pdf www.edri.org