[privacy] ID cards 'will allow crime fingerprint checks'

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/20/nidcards20.x
ml

ID cards 'will allow crime fingerprint checks' 
By George Jones, Political Editor
Last Updated: 2:13am GMT 20/02/2007

People who get identity cards will have their fingerprints checked against
those found at the scene of nearly a million unsolved crimes, Tony Blair
said last night.

Responding to a petition on the No 10 Downing Street website calling for the
proposed introduction of ID cards to be scrapped, Mr Blair said the
biometric recognition details, such as fingerprints, would be entered on a
new National Identity Register.

In an email to the 28,000 people who signed the online petition, Mr Blair
said the register would help police bring those guilty of serious crimes to
justice.

"They will be able, for example, to compare the fingerprints found at the
scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes against the information held on the
register."

The Government is already building up a national DNA register by authorising
the police to take saliva swabs from anyone who is arrested – even if they
are not charged – as well as those convicted of serious criminal offences.

Mr Blair's email appears to contradict an assurance given by Tony McNulty, a
Home Office Minister, when the legislation was going through the Commons in
2005. Mr McNulty said there were safeguards against state agencies "for want
of a better phrase, going fishing in the database".

The Conservatives are committed to scrapping the ID card scheme, which they
claim will cost at least £5 billion.

        

_______________________________________________
privacy mailing list
privacy () whitestar linuxbox org
http://www.whitestar.linuxbox.org/mailman/listinfo/privacy