By Steve Ranger, 17 September 2007 12:06
NEWS
The government is recording over 100,000 fingerprints a month from foreign nationals while overseas and applying to come to the UK.
Visa applicants in 100 countries worldwide are required to provide fingerprints if they want to visit to the UK for work, study or tourism. The biometric programme has been running since last September with the aim of recording the fingerprints of every foreign national applying for a UK visa by April 2008.
Fingerprints taken as part of the visa application process are checked against government records to see if the individual is already known to the Border and Immigration Agency.
This has already seen over 8,000 sets of prints matched to individuals "of concern" which the government said proves the effectiveness of the biometric checks.
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Immigration minister Liam Byrne said it's not just abroad that these fingerprint records are used. Once these individuals are in the UK the Immigration Services use the same database for enforcement activity, such as illegal working operations.
The government said over 700,000 sets of prints had been collected by the end of August.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. BillK
Errrr? I thought the government was trying to reassure the public by claiming that immigration was about 150,000 per year.
How come they are taking over a million a year in fingerprints?
And that doesn't count illegals, either.
2. Chris Goodman
Good thing, why not have some identity proving data of those coming (legally) to UK.
But better still is to fingerprint and DNA sample ALL illegal arrivals WHEN they arrive/are apprehended and identified. To then hold them in detention centres at the carrier's expense while fingerprints, etc, checked with interpol and other databases.
3. Richard
Unfortunately, their database is suspect:
It's easy to instruct the government's visa contractors to record fingerprints etc.
Unfortunately, data in the government's database is suspect:
I've known people to be accused of violating their visa conditions - and "blacklisted" for any further applications - when they have been completely innocent.
Presumably, the opposite also happens?
UK government needs to learn that databases are useless unless the data can be trusted.
This means taking much more care with data entry, and also conducting regular audits of "data quality."
Sadly, the UK government seems more interested in headlines such as the vague & suspect claim to have "caught over 8000 bogus applications."
A proper complaints procedure would also help.
4. Richard
That's odd: The UK government currently rejects a large proportion of applications for visitors' visas, especially from ordinary people in southern Asia:
Strangely, the government's VisitBritain tourism outfit has recently proclaimed their appointment of representatives in Bangalore and Mumbai.
5. Susan
Hmm,
Could this not be considered Discriminatory if they are not taking finger prints of all british nationals who are coming into/returning to the country?