As prepared for delivery...

Biometric Visa Conferences

Remarks by Ambassador Klosson
March 3, 2004

Good afternoon.  You are about to witness an important new step in our effort to provide safety and security for the traveling public. I have invited you here today to introduce a new program designed to facilitate legitimate travel and increase the security of our borders.  Biometrics – or the science of measuring and analyzing biological data -- is part of a growing trend to confirm identity, to prevent travel under a false identity, and to keep known criminals and terrorists out of the U.S.

This program has the added benefit of providing legitimate travelers a greater level of protection against terrorism, while at the same time providing them with greater security against identity fraud.  Thus, there are benefits for travelers, airlines and all countries these travelers will visit, not just the USA.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks against the United States, new legislation was passed to secure U.S. borders while continuing to encourage legitimate travelers to visit our country.  To use the phrase coined by Secretary of State Colin Powell, “Secure Borders, Open Doors”.

The most efficient and least intrusive means of implementing a biometric solution for travel documents is fingerprint scanning.  Scanning does not add significant time to a visa interview (generally less than 30 seconds) and does not require any ink – so no need to worry about getting your hands dirty!

Fingerprint scanning will be an essential link in our border security.  Prints scanned at our mission at the time of visa issuance will be compared with similarly collected fingerprints at ports of entry.  This will verify identity and reduce the use of stolen and counterfeit visas, which will make travel to the U.S. safer for legitimate travelers.  The prints will also be compared against a subset of other fingerprints for wanted persons, immigration violators, and other criminals.  The inclusion of biometric data in travel records will make it easier to replace lost or stolen travel documents by facilitating confirmation of identity.  Most important, this procedure represents – for all travelers, not just Americans,  an important new step in the effort to provide safety and security for the traveling public.

We very much welcome people from Cyprus to continue to choose America as their destination for vacations, education, business trips, and honeymoons.  Our government is doing all that it can to make sure that your visit is not only enjoyable, but safe.  I know that these new biometric procedures will help to achieve this goal.

Our goal is to make this process as simple and convenient as possible, and we are confident that the measures being introduced meet that challenge.  You are about to see for yourselves.  Rather than an inconvenience, this new program represents an important new step in the effort to provide safety and security for the traveling public.

To demonstrate the simplicity of this new procedure, I will go through the fingerprint scanning process, just as the visa applicants will do when they come to the embassy.