Recall that the U.S. wants 27 countries to adopt biometric passports that the U.S. will be able to read easily. These countries, in the U.S. visa waiver scheme, were given an October 2005 deadline to comply with the biometric passport requirement, and the U.S. has extended the deadline to October 2006 after several countries complained that they could not implement the technology in time to meet the deadline.

The 27 countries in the visa waiver program are Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The visa waiver program allows passport holders from these countries to enter the U.S. for tourism or business purposes for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.