As a signatory to the Schengen Agreement on external border controls, Switzerland is committed to introducing biometric passports by 2010. These will include an electronically encoded photo and fingerprints on a chip. Now, the National Council, the lower house of the federal parliament, has decided that Switzerland’s national identity card should include a similar chip with the same data.

This is a reversal of the National Council’s vote earlier this year to maintain chip-less ID cards alongside the biometric passports. The upper house subsequently supported the introduction of biometric ID. A majority within a committee of the lower house then also backed the idea of bringing in biometric national ID at the same time as biometric passports – reportedly for reasons of cost. So the draft legislation on biometric ID came back to the National Council for a second vote. This time, it secured a big majority (117 to 67).

The new cards will be in the “credit card” format already used for Swiss ID documents. They are to be provided at “family-friendly” prices. While the new biometric passport on its own will cost CHF140 (about €87), a passport plus an identity card will be priced at CHF148 (approx. €92) for adults and CHF68 (approx. €42) for children.

Further information:

• heise online – News article (in German)