By Steve Ranger, 22 November 2006 13:20
NEWS
Police forces are using handheld computers to run roadside fingerprint tests to crack down on rogue motorists who provide fake identities.
Bedfordshire Police is the first of 10 forces to start fingerprint identity checks at the roadside as part of a national project called Lantern. It's the second high tech police trial announced this week - earlier it was revealed that officers will be trialling helmet-mounted digital cameras.
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T is for Twins
U is for Universality
V is for Voice verification
W is for Walk
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Z is for Zurich Airport
The trial will allow immediate checking of fingerprints against the national fingerprint database known as Idnet1.
Forces calculate they can save £2.2m per year by eliminating the need to take suspects back to the station to have them fingerprinted - plus another £1.6m in extra revenue from Fixed Penalty Notices (on the spot fines for minor offences).
Bedfordshire's mobile fingerprint device piloting is being carried out by its automatic number plate recognition team.
When a suspect vehicle is stopped, police need to identify the driver and at the moment 60 per cent of drivers stopped do not give their true identity.
The Lantern device works by scanning the subject's index fingers. The data is sent using encrypted wireless transmissions to the central fingerprint database, where the print is run against the 6.5 million in the collection in less than five minutes.
Nicky Dahl, chief superintendent of Bedfordshire Police force, said if officers can quickly establish a driver's identity it means they can spend more time out on patrol without having to make frequent trips back in to the main police stations.
The pilot is scheduled for completion in December 2007 and will help explore accuracy and capacity issues ahead of any national rollout.
Northrop Grumman and Sagem will be supplying the handheld devices and search capability being used in the pilot, while Cable & Wireless will provide encryption and connectivity.
Comments
There are 16 comments. Join the discussion
1. keitht
heading towards a police state cameras everywhere you turn now fingerprint check because you done 31mph what next phone tapping because you not paid the bill in fact why not change great britain to russia.
2. anonymous
Despite government claims to contrary, I see this as being all part of the same system as the ID scheme.
Tony Blair has already said that the police will be able to access the ID database using fingerprint data to identify people, and it is only the next logical step to link these handhled reader through to the system.
This means that the police can potentially trawl for suspects. Ok they can only stop and check people on reasonable grounds, but that could be a minimal as standing in a group talking.
3. Martin Anderson
Yet another brick in the growing police state. Each one justified on some ground of efficiency or effectiveness. Each one guaranteed not to e misused, then slowly the promises are unwound the links made and the net tightens.
It will not be this government that creates the Police State, but another in the future, but the infrastructure and apparatus that makes it possible is being built today.
We are sleepwalking into a horrible future.
4. anonymous
Why don't they knock all this finger printing, ID cards, Biometrics and black-box technology stuff on the head & chip us at birth, if they're really clever they could build a self-destruct device in; you'd really see everybody behave themselves then!
5. anonymous
1. How much would be saved by police officers not pushing forms? Would a pairing like the Internal Sales and Field Sales Manager work with the Internal person doing the forms? Rather than PSCOs making it look like we have police on the streets.
2. Will fingerprints of those proved innocent and without a criminal record be wiped?
3. Will they be wiped with BCWipe?
4. I'm going to start carrying photocopies of my motoring docs. and licence in the car.
5. This could stop me speeding, but I hardly use the car and on 500 mile trips leaving home at midnight I like to make progress.
6. We don't have anywhere to put prisoners already, so what will we do with them when we catch more? Gordon doesn't want to pay for prison places.
7. Is it me, or are we heading to a model very much like the former Eastern Bloc? Rather than someone you thought was a friend telling the authorities you listen to jazz, it'll be taxpayer funded snoops coming round your house with a digital camera.
8. Where do these nosey control freaks get off?
9. If they found dope at Dr. John Reid's Scottish place their minds are boggling at what they'll find in ours.
6. anonymous
I disagree with the previous comments.
Do we have too much crime? Yes. Do the criminals use all the technology they can get their hands on? Yes. Will the police be able to reduce crime if they use more spohisticated technology to get ahead of the bad guys? Yes. Are the fears about civil liberties grounded in fact or in fiction? Fiction, or perhaps fear of the unknown.
I say that if we are serious about tackling crime in all its manifestations we need to equip the law enforcement agencies with modern tools to do the job, and make proper use of the existing powers to identify and punish any abuse. The debate needs to move on from repeating the same platitudes to whether the powers preventing abuse are fit for purpose. My own view is that they are now and that they need to be kept under review in the years ahead.
7. Graham Coles
This, of course, relies on the incorrect assumption that fingerprints are unique identifiers.
This has never been proven and has recently been contested. It is a notion perpetuated by fiction and fact alike.
I would guess they are 'locally unique' to a reasonable extent; when found at a crime scene and compared with people known to be in the vicinity they should be a good factor in matching up suspects.
When you aim to compare an individuals fingerprints against a huge database of fingerprints from 55 million people or more and use it as a vague matching service, it is quite likely that discrepancies could arise. This is not how fingerprints should be used.
And in answer to a previous question about whether the fingerprints will be erased, properly or otherwise, if the person is found innocent, just ask if the fingerprints of underage children in the UK were wiped after they didn't match. The correct answer is No, of course they won't.
8. anonymous
Can I just point out that , at the moment, this fingerprint testing is VOLUNTARY, we can refuse. The law would have to be changed to make it compulsory.
If this exercise is really about stopping crime, and not about snooping & interfering into every aspect of our personal lives (which I suspect ir really is) then pass a law that all drivers must carry their driving licence in the car - that will identify us quickly without any high tech cost. Simple? And effective. But then I'm not a mendacious technophobic prime minister.....
9. anonymous
So how exactly does taking your fingerprints "establish your identity" ?
10. Jock Smith
If you have nothing to hide, what's the problem, same goes for ID cards.
11. Jingo Bigot
Why don't you just insert a chip in us at birth?
12. Karen Challinor
the idea is that by taking your fingerprint at the scene then sending it back to base where it can be compared with the central database (not the national identity register) they can check if you are who you say you are
provided they have previously established your identity for some reason that got your prints into the central database
my questions are as follows
what if you aren't in the database are your fingerprints destroyed or added ?
if you have sufficient documentation to establish your identity will you still be able to refuse to give your fingerprint once the scheme goes live. ?
13. Adrian Carey
I agree with the comments re us walking blindfold into a police state.
We are all increasingly liable to being 'criminalised' by the system.
Once our fingerprints are taken, they will be held indefinitely. No authoritarian group give up information. And as for our right not to have our fingerprints taken. Who are you kidding? From http://www.yourrights.org.uk:
Fingerprints can be taken "If you have been convicted of a recordable offence or cautioned in respect of a recordable offence you have admitted or been warned or reprimanded under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for a recordable offence."
" Recordable offences are specified in regulations and include all but the most trivial offences."
"Where fingerprints are taken without your consent, reasons must be given before they are taken and those reasons must be recorded. Reasonable force may be used. If the police obtain your consent to fingerprinting, it must be in writing if given at a police station."
Did anyone else notice the telling statement in the article:
"Forces calculate they can save £2.2m per year by eliminating the need to take suspects back to the station to have them fingerprinted - plus another £1.6m in extra revenue from Fixed Penalty Notices (on the spot fines for minor offences)."
So:
1 - Forget the 'protection' of them having to get your permission.
2 - It's all about money. They'll find a 'minor offence' to charge you with so that:
a) they can fine you
b) they can finerprint you.
Paranoid? Me?
14. Mr.1984
>If you have nothing to hide, what's the problem, same goes for ID cards.
Nice try, even if you have nothing to hide then you obviously have nothing to fear .........apart from mistakes and hell knows if you combine Technology and Humans....... then you are going to get those.......... Be afraid Mr.
15. Karen Challinor
"if you have nothing to hide..."
are you 100% sure you have nothing to hide ?, there are a lot of very complex laws on the books, laws which allow for a large amount of discretion on the part of the official in their interpretation.
so if an official decides you are a bad guy, however mistaken they may be, then given the depth of information about you that they will shortly have access to it's pretty much guaranteed that they can find an offence they can at least caution you with if not arrest you.
and once that has happened you will be in the system, you will have a criminal record, the details of this may not be available to insurance agents, banks and employers but the fact it exists will be, lets see what happens to your premiums and credit applications then or your promotion prospects.
further because you are now in the system, the automatic surveillance of your life will click up a notch, your phone records will become available and not just international calls, access to official buildings may lead to being frisked on entry or denied access, going abroad for a holiday could become more of an adventure than you expect
and all because of something trivial that you did that you didn't know was a crime and had completely forgotten about
tell me again how you have nothing to fear from giving up your civil liberties by allowing the ID Card and NIR act, roadside fingerprinting, banning peaceful protest within a mile of parliament unless you get permission first and CCTV coverage of every square metre of the uk
16. Justice Falls
A stolen car caused a bus to write off my bro's car he bought his next car at a police auction, on his way home the police stopped + charged him with car theft, still on their books as stolen. Checked his details, the bus incident came up - they assumed he was the offender + shoved him in a cell, sent him to court for car theft, driving an unfit vehicle (no petrol cap), forging the MOT the police garage provided. No case to answer but police thought he'd got away with it on a technicality + kept stopping him. I don't expect fingerprint ID will make police behave any better + they might assume a print means something it doesn't. 'You have nothing to fear if you've nothing to hide brigade - wake up - try spending time in a cell or being persecuted because police make mistakes.