Traveling with a ‘smart’ passport

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   Russia will already begin to issue new-generation traveling passports containing information about their holders on electronic media in January. The Government previously planned to commence introduction of biometric documents only in 2007. Kremlin explains the expedited timeline for this innovation by the fact that most developed countries will already adopt electronic passports in a year’s time, and ‘a delay would put our citizens abroad in inferior position to the foreigners who will have e-passports.’ After this statement, some experts do not exclude a possibility that there will be certain confusion in the issuance of these state-of-the-art documents, as innovations may increase the processing time, raise the cost of forms, etc.
   However, Yuri Stepin, Visa Department Director from PAK Group, believes that such problems due to exchange of traveling passports should not arise, because this process will be implemented in phases and will take at least 5 years. Moreover, embassies still accept passports that even do not have a barcode. ’Another thing is if it will be necessary to obtain a document in the new format for a trip to a country in which the requirements for biometric control of the entrants are already in place,’ reflects Mr. Stepin. ‘But at present no such requirements exist anywhere. Nevertheless, border services in the US, Belgium, Holland, and several other European countries threaten to introduce them.’
   By the way, one of the declared objectives of issuing new traveling passports is to move Russia closer to the visa-free entry regime with the countries that are developing similar passport systems. Experts interviewed by BANKO differed on this point. Svetlana Stroganova, Director of ‘Euro-expo.ru’, believes that a visa-free regime will be established, but not that quickly as one would desire. ‘However, free travel of Russian tourists and the possibility of ordering a tour by clicking a button – e.g. on the Internet – would deprive travel companies of their bread, and therefore a visa-free regime is undesirable for travel market operators,’ Ms. Stroganova concludes. Liudmila Puchkova, President of Lanta-Tour Voyage, disagrees: ‘We already have visa-free countries – for instance, Indonesia with its Bali resort island.’ On the other hand, people in PAK Group are sure that Russians will not ever see a visa-free regime for entry into western countries. There is a possibility that there will be a somewhat easier entry into certain countries through business, cultural and other channels, but there will be no ‘indulgence’ for regular tourists.