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New fingerprint scanners add to UK surveillance

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Oct 27, IRNA

UK-Surveillance

Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners, increasing the surveillance of individuals in what is already the world's most monitored country.

The introduction comes after a trial of scanners used the new technology alongside automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems to check the identities of people in vehicles.

The devices are being designed to be able receive pictures of suspects so officers on the ground can use the images to help verify identities, the Guardian newspaper reported Monday.

In January, Security Minister Lord West revealed that Britain has a national fingerprint database of more than 7 million, some 12 per cent of the total population.

Fingerprints in Britain currently can be taken by police for anyone arrested, including those who never charged with a recordable offense.

The Guardian said the new technology, which ultimately may be able to receive pictures of suspects, is likely to be in widespread use within 18 months.

The police claimed the scheme, called Project Midas, will transform the speed of criminal investigations, civil liberty campaigners expressed concerned about the scanners being used to increase random checks of individuals.

"Saving time with new technology could help police performance but officers must make absolutely certain they take fingerprints only when they suspect an individual of an offense and can't establish his identity," said Liberty director Gareth Crossman, Crossman also cautioned that the law on the use of scanners required fingerprints taken in such circumstances to be deleted after use and not added to the UK's databases.

Last year, a poll carried out by Liberty found that more than half of Britons believed the country had become a 'surveillance society" since the advent of the so-called war on terrorism.

The human rights group catalogued the numerous ways in which ordinary Britons have increasingly become "suspects" subject to intense surveillance.

Amongst the findings, the UK was listed as the world leader in CCTV use with approximately 4.2 million cameras and also has the biggest national DNA database with 3.9 m samples.