Biometric passports may be issued from 2007 - official

MOSCOW, March 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia may start issuing passports with biometric data as early as 2007, the country's top migration official said Wednesday.

"If the pilot project proves successful, the issue of such passports will begin in 2007," Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovsky said.

Biometric passports are currently being issued in Kaliningrad Region, an exclave of Russia on the Baltic Sea, and at a number of Russian embassies. The passports contain digitized data on their bearers and are harder to forge or falsify than regular papers.

Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said up to five million passports could be printed and issued annually. He added that 12 million biometric passports had been produced .