UK - hundreds hit in drive for roadside fingerprints

[buckthesystem]

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news?ArticleID=2703502

"police database picked out 223 cars, but only 3 arrests were made for minor offences", well if this is the case then it seems an incredible waste of money and pretty immoral to invade so many peoples' privacy for just that result.

Also: I think they're lying when they claim they were not "random" stops, as if they were in fact "targeted", a lot more than just three arrests would have been made. So trust this government at your peril!

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By Andrew Robinson

HUNDREDS of motorists have had their fingerprints checked at the roadside in a controversial pilot scheme that has raised fears of a growing Big Brother culture.

Drivers and passengers are among the 4,200 people who just in the past four months have been asked to use a hand-held fingerprint reader.

The device checks their identity against 6.5 million recorded prints of convicts and crime suspects.

On average 60 per cent of those stopped so far in the voluntary pilot are not on the fingerprint database.

In West Yorkshire, which is part of the scheme, 223 drivers and three passengers in Bradford and Wakefield have been checked since it was launched in December. Just three arrests were made for drugs offences and theft.

A total of 74 people checked were Asian, 14 black, one mixed race and 137 white, prompting warnings that ethnic minorities may feel unfairly targeted.

Last night West Yorkshire Police said they were investigating the figures.

Critics fear the pilot will be rolled out nationally and will eventually lead to finger prints of innocent people being stored by stealth. The Government has admitted it is considering making it compulsory to give prints at the roadside.

Fingerprint checks are normally made only on crime suspects in police stations.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Nick Clegg, MP for Sheffield Hallam, said: "These fingerprint scanners can only be successful if they command public trust, and that in turn depends on strict safeguards governing the use of fingerprint data.

"We should be looking much more widely for technologies that can save police time and help with law enforcement without intruding unnecessarily into people's privacy. The police do not need more powers, they just need the tools to do their job.

"There must be no backtracking on the commitment from the police not to retain the data they collect from these mobile scanners."

A member of the Bradford Minorities Police Liaison Committee, Bary Malik, said the Yorkshire figures "may cause unease" in Bradford.

"If drivers are stopped for nothing it causes unease. Police should be transparent and make it clear why people are stopped," he said.

But police insist all prints are immediately destroyed. They say their checks are not targeting innocent drivers and point out 40 per cent of those checked so far were already known to officers.

The device has also stopped several sophisticated criminals operating with false identities and has also been used to quickly identify suicide victims and those killed in car accidents.

In Bradford, it recently identified a serious criminal who had been on the run for 18 months but had changed his appearance.

In the region, fingerprints are taken from motorists whose cars have been picked out by an Automatic Number Plate Recognition system, which checks plates against police databases.

(for the rest of the article go to link)