That cheaper air travel and the Internet have made the world a smaller place cannot be in dispute. Yet, our smaller world has generated new dangers that have had to be confronted. One of these is documentary fraud, on a frankly disturbing scale, involving known criminals who seek to prey on the prosperous citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

Saudi Arabia has arguably led the way in clamping down on illegal foreign workers. Among such people is inevitably a proportion of opportunist criminals. Such people are willing to exploit the welcome they have been given.

The huge campaign last year to regularize the work permit and residency status of millions of expatriates was a visionary initiative. It is being mirrored by similar action in other GCC states.

But at the core of the challenge is separating the sheep from the goats. The vast majority of illegal expatriates in the Gulf region are committing what amounts to an economic crime.

They are breaking the law insofar that they overstay their visas and probably acquire false documents to permit their continued residence and work. What they are doing is undoubtedly wrong. But they are often desperate individuals seeking to earn money to send to their families back home.

In a different class altogether are the criminals who are intent on exploiting the GCC’s enduring need for expatriate workers. These individuals enter member states on false papers. They then pursue an underground existence robbing and cheating. It actually makes their crimes worse that they very often exploit their fellow expatriate workers, every bit as much as they seek to profit from law-breaking directed at their host countries.

Managing these transgressors when they are caught has always presented a conundrum. It is absolutely right that convicts should be punished. Yet in few of the countries from where they come, is there any guarantee that, if they are deported, they will be made to serve out in local jails sentences handed down by GCC courts. Therefore, the states in which they are convicted must go to the expense of imprisoning them. And inevitably when the prison term is finished, the criminal is deported.

The problem is, time and again, these wrongdoers are next appearing in another GCC member states, occasionally using their real identities. More often than not, however, they buy false documents from the ready black-market for such papers.

The GCC has long had protocols designed to coordinate immigration databases. These have identified some criminals. But it is equally clear that too many wrongdoers are still slipping through the net.

The GCC move to use biometrics to verify identities is therefore highly significant. An arrival may not hold a travel document with biometric details. But this will not matter.

A biometric database of convicted criminals is being created. Iris-scanning, facial recognition, even good old finger prints will find the fraudster out. The impact on the arrival of known criminals is likely to be considerable. Once word gets out that GCC countries are no longer an easy option for cheats and thieves, many will no longer wish to risk almost inevitable detection.

It is obvious, once the biometric defenses against known criminals have been erected, the technology can be put to wider use. The whole issue of foreign workers can be addressed.

In the Kingdom, foreign arrivals are already photographed as an aid to facial recognition. In time these data can be combined with other biometric scans. The final outcome will be an identification system which cannot be fooled.

And of course there is more than just common criminals who will be frustrated by the new GCC measures. The issue of security in GCC states has never been more important. The terror threat to our societies is pressing and real. The new biometric verification of travelers’ details will contribute to our continuing safety.

Rooting out the criminals in our midst and ensuring they cannot return to offend again is to everyone’s benefit. There are 20 million expatriate workers in the GCC, half of them here in the Kingdom.

When biometrics are used as a matter of course to verify identity, everyone will be better off. The vast majority of foreign workers are peaceable and hard-working.

They do not wish to be exploited by criminals. They do not want to live with the threat of terror attacks.

The introduction of the new integrated GCC biometric database is therefore of the clearest benefit to everyone.