Between Andorra, Denmark, UK, US, Canada, NZ, Australia and North Macedonia in which of these countries you aren't required to surrender your biometric data for banking, passports, national ids etc?
Executive summary
Across the eight countries named, publicly available comparative reporting shows clear variation: Andorra, Denmark and the United Kingdom do not issue national identity cards (which reduces—but does not eliminate—routine biometric enrollment tied to a national ID) [1], while North Macedonia is reported to issue non‑biometric ID cards [2]; by contrast, the United States has long produced passports containing biometric facial data [3]. The sources consulted do not provide a single, authoritative table that settles whether biometric data are “required” for every use case (banking, passports, national IDs) in each jurisdiction, so conclusions below emphasize what the reporting actually supports and where it leaves gaps [4].
1. National ID cards: who issues them and which are biometric
A cluster of trackers and country surveys note that some states in the list—specifically Andorra, Denmark and the United Kingdom—do not issue national identity cards at all, meaning there is no single compulsory biometric ID card program for the population in those jurisdictions [1]; regulators and commentators also single out North Macedonia as issuing non‑biometric ID cards, making it an outlier in Europe where many countries move toward chip‑based or eID regimes [2]. These are factual, limited observations about card issuance and biometric content rather than blanket statements about every interaction (for example, a passport or a bank onboarding process could still request biometrics even where there is no national ID card) [1] [2].
2. Passports and travel documents: the U.S. example and global trend
At least some countries on the list do produce biometric passports: the United States had long planned facial‑image inclusion in passport production and is part of the global move to ICAO e‑passports that store biometric templates [3]. The broader reporting underscores that many nations are adopting biometric features for passports and travel documents as an international standard, but the specific passport technology status for Andorra, Denmark, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and North Macedonia is not fully itemized in the reports provided here [3] [4].
3. Banking: growing use of biometrics but jurisdictional variation
Analysts and comparative studies warn that banking increasingly uses biometrics for authentication and onboarding, yet adoption, legal compulsion and the extent to which banks may require biometric checks differ by country and by bank [4] [5]. The sources document the trend—fingerprint or facial verification in apps and branch KYC—but they do not supply definitive, country‑by‑country legal requirements for banking in Andorra, Denmark, UK, US, Canada, NZ, Australia or North Macedonia, so it is not possible from these documents alone to declare that any given country uniformly “doesn’t require” biometrics for banking [4] [5].
4. Legal and regulatory context: protections, obligations and EU pressure
European law and programs are reshaping national approaches: EU and EEA members are being pushed toward digital IDs under eIDAS and related initiatives, which will affect biometric deployment, and reporting notes that by end‑2026 many EU states must provide digital IDs [6]. Privacy frameworks such as GDPR make biometric data specially sensitive and subject to strict processing conditions in Europe, which influences how governments and banks justify collection—but protective law is distinct from whether biometrics are required for particular services [6] [7].
5. What can and cannot be asserted from the available reporting
It is supportable to state that Andorra, Denmark and the UK do not issue national ID cards (reducing mandatory biometric enrollment tied to such cards) and that North Macedonia has non‑biometric ID cards, based on the sources [1] [2]. It is also supportable that the U.S. passports include biometric facial data and that biometric use in banking and ID is a widespread, accelerating global trend [3] [4]. What the reporting does not provide is a definitive, comprehensive legal list saying “biometrics are never required for banking, passports or national IDs” for each of the eight countries; that gap means any claim that a country absolutely does not require biometrics across those three domains would overreach the cited material [4] [1].