UK cops can now fingerprint on the fly
Cops in the UK are being armed with a new weapon that can take a suspect's fingerprints on the fly and instantly compare them with a database of 6.5 million prints on file. The goal is to reduce the number of false identities given during roadside stops by "suspect drivers". 4Car reports that about 60% of suspect drivers give false identification when they're stopped by authorities. The technology will also allow police to identify innocent travels who don't match suspects being sought, thereby reducing the time imposed on those who were just unlucky enough to be caught in the crosshairs of the law. The initial pilot project, called Lantern, is being run in Bedfordshire, whose force was given 10 units to try out. While fingerprints taken during traffic stops reportedly won't be held for future use, civil rights groups are still wary that the new devices will take Britain one step closer to a national database of all motorists' fingerprints. [Source: 4Car]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mark 4:56PM (11/23/2006)
"a national database of all motorists' fingerprints" and this is bad because? the only way this could be a problem for you is if you've been a bit naughty and left your prints somewhere you shouldn't have. so if you haven't been breaking the law you'll have nothing to worry about, and if you have, well it's your own fault
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epp_b 5:36PM (11/23/2006)
["and this is bad because? the only way this could be a problem for you is if you've been a bit naughty and left your prints somewhere you shouldn't have. so if you haven't been breaking the law you'll have nothing to worry about, and if you have, well it's your own fault"]
Well that's pretty naive.
We're talking about a surveillant system to keep tabs on the general public for...2 MPH over the speed limit?
Laws aren't always for the better; or even correct, for that matter. Laws are continually being made who's only purpose is to make criminals out of everyday people doing everyday things. When that happens, the law is simply wrong.
You'd better wake up, because by the time you realize that all of your rights and freedoms have been robbed away, it will be too late to gain them back.
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Ryan 6:02PM (11/23/2006)
"4Car reports that about 60% of suspect drivers give false identification when they're stopped by authorities."
-Bullshit
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Fabulo 6:05PM (11/23/2006)
Slowly but surely our modern democracies are drifting toward totalitarism.
Mark, your comment shows how honnest people like you trust everyone else to be as honnest and accountable as you are. Unfortunately, it is not in human nature. This is why most democracies are built on the account of dividing the powers between different entities who are supposed to keep tabs on each others, and no one of these single power can overwhelm the other.
When are the people in the UK going to realize those laws, schemes and unrealistic requests are imposed on them by the people they voted in? Honnestly, why would you let yourself tracked, probed, taxed like de-brained sheep like that? Is that the result of hundreds of years living under the hammer of their arrogant aristocracy?
I really don't get it.
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Keith 6:18PM (11/23/2006)
I wouldn't worry about this stuff...if I could trust the government.
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epp_b 7:52PM (11/23/2006)
Well said, Fabulo. ++ for that post.
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Desiri 8:08PM (11/23/2006)
"the only way this could be a problem for you is if you've been a bit naughty and left your prints somewhere you shouldn't have"
Like on a political pamphlet for a cause that is out of favor with the current regime? I'm sure Joseph McCarthy wishes he had access to this type of information.
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Richard S. 11:37PM (11/23/2006)
Hmmm...wasn't that movie V for Vendetta about Britain.....life imitating art.
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Scion Driver 10:50PM (11/23/2006)
The sad fact is that we are all criminals. We ALL have something to worry about because laws have become so pervasive, so complex and so bewildering that it is A. impossible to even begin to know and understand them all, much less obey them all, and B. even more impossible to obey them all. If there are any of you who are not lawbreakers (think before you write) then you can throw the first stone. The greatest threat to freedom and liberty and democracy is the law and the lawmakers we elect who are increasingly triangulating upon our rights and freedoms and strangulating the very idea that liberty shall not perish from the face of the earth. It's perishing all right.
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Chris 11:09PM (11/23/2006)
A national database would infringe on what freedom? The right to never be on file? We all have a driver's license, if that isn't a database of any kind that I don't know what is. I'm going to have to agree with Mark, the only way this should pose a problem is if you have committed a crime. You can call me naive, but if you're upset that going 2mph over can get you a ticket (and what does going over the speed limit have to do with fingerprints? If the cop sees you speed and pulls you over, that has nothing to do with fingerprints), then pressure the government to raise the speed limit. You elect the politicians damn it. THAT, my friends, is democracy.
How is finger print identification any different from a photo on your license? Both offer a form of verification, except one is much harder to fake. I really don't get the controversy. Fingerprints on file, big deal.
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epp_b 12:37AM (11/24/2006)
["A national database would infringe on what freedom? The right to never be on file?"]
Let's start with privacy rights.
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quandmeme 2:58AM (11/24/2006)
/continues threadjack
I'm trying to imagine what's so bad about the gov't having my fingerprints or DNA on file to confirm its me. So I'm thinking 'Minority Report' (the eyeballs) or 'Borne Supremacy' (the false fingerprint left in the electrical closet) isn't it only a problem when their is a short circuit in the evidence, "his fingerprint is here, get him." Is the problem that someone will frame you or that they will know about the things Scion Driver is talking about. Help me know how to vote when this comes to my town (aka rfid passports, biometric national id cards).
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quandmeme 2:59AM (11/24/2006)
PS: the right to privacy isn't yet in the US Federal Constitution except by judicial manufacture. The way I read it a federal statute supplants state constitutions that do have a right to privacy. But even the protections from search that are clearly part of the fourth amendment are side-stepped by an "articulable suspicion" (not talking about probable cause situations). If this happened in the US, wouldn't this be like the breathalizer, you consent when you get the license?
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Flo 3:09AM (11/24/2006)
Maybe the British government should consider making drivers carry PHOTO IDs! That would be a start!
If the police were stopping random individuals on a sidewalk, and running ID checks on them, that would be one thing. This is running checks on individuals AFTER they have been stopped by the police for committing a crime (though a minor one: a summary offence, similar to an infraction in the US legal system). When you are a LICENSED operator, you are expected to identify yourself if necessary. If you commit an offence, it is only expected that the police will run your name to check for any outstanding warrants.
Is it any worse to identify you by the pattern of your finger tip than by the pattern of your facial features in comparison to a photo?
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mark 4:12AM (11/24/2006)
we do carry photo ids, the drivers license has a photo on it, but if you say "oh sorry, i don't have it" you're made to give your details and then present your documents at a later date, this is where people lie, this isn't going to be used to make random checks, it will be used in the situation where you have broken the law (speeding, run a red light), got stopped, and then claimed not to have any id on you
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Greg 6:47AM (11/24/2006)
#1 - YOur comments echo those of the Gestapo....
'What do you have to hide?'.
Won't be long before they are inspecting everyones homes.... just to make sure there are no missing kidnapped people in their.... let me ask you something... are you going to say 'sure, come right in?'
UK has one of the most advanced systems of tracing vehicles in the world..... and now they need this?
Wake the F*ck up or put down the kool aid.... this is society's worst nightmare come true.
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Richard Warren 8:40AM (11/24/2006)
I always get a kick out of discussions like these, they bring back the old "papers please" comments.
First, we already have a national ID card it's called your Social Security card a Passport will work also. (Copied, fakes for sale anywhere if you know the sign that would be your forfinger and thumb held in a square as if holding a credit card and in the right place you can have a copy in about 2 hours for a couple of hundred dollars. Same for passports, drivers licenses, pretty much what you want.)
Second, if you've been in the service, arrested, or been asked for a fingerprint anywhere, it's already on file.
In our town we've had over 1000 fakes drivers licenses presented at our grocery stores for cigarettes and booze. In a town of 3000.
One of the businesses I own is a cellphone store it's required on a new contract that we have phot id. Care to guess how many fake ID's I've picked up. Yep, folks are that dumb, the credit check finds it. Kids mostly trying to get one under 18. We've had some adults.
Third, we are willing give up information about ourselves everyday in search of that credit card, home loan, car loan. Hell they know more about us than the government knows. What we buy, where we buy, how often we buy, where we travel, how much we overspend,where we are our financial information. Think they don't share that information? Hello! We give up personal information on the Internet, think your IP address is not shared and stored? Cookies shared? You think you can hide, you can't. Ever think about how many places your SS# is stored? How about the IRS? We know, they know. Hell you need a SS card nearly right out of the womb.
Fourth, ever had your identity stolen? You actually might think this is a wonderful thing after you try to unbury yourself. If you feel so secure that we don't need positive ID then how does it get stolen, how do you really prove you are who you are. What questions (papers please!)did you have to answer. How about the driver that just ripped off your car, gets pulled over, and guess what his ID is fake, but his finger print isn't.
What are you afraid of? That government will come knocking on your door in the middle of the night? That the government will fall and these records will be used for some dark purpose? Records they actually already have. Hell, with a little information I'd find you just using some basic Internet tools, even find your home and surrounding area map it and have a driving map to it and your place of work. I don't even need your SS number or driver licenses number. I can even track you using caller ID, oops; forgot to turn it off?
Lastly if you haven't done anything wrong, what are you really afraid of?
Lets say you live in your state and never got a ticket (that's just sick and wrong)you roll into another state and you get stopped. First thing the officer asks for :Papers Please! You give him tour DL, proof of insurance, reg. Care to know how much they know? (That would be the government by the way) Ever wonder why they take that all back to the cruiser punch it into the computer and the info they get back?
There is a word for this: xenophobic
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Stoneman 9:12AM (11/24/2006)
I think Chamillionaire said it best when he wrote the song Ridin'.
Stoneman
http://www.stonemanautoreview.com
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Scion Driver 1:15AM (11/25/2006)
"Lastly if you haven't done anything wrong, what are you really afraid of? "
So Richard Warren, I guess you never do anything wrong? What, are you superhuman or something? A saint? Are you Jesus?
Here's the problem. The most powerful force on the face of the earth is the government of the U.S.A. Every inch of power that this insatiable entity assumes, for whatever reason (protecting us from terrorism, communism, the mafia, bird flu, spongebob square pants, janet jackson's nipple, etc...) yes everytime the government make a power grab, the weapons we give them, no matter what the reason we gave them those weapons, those weapons eventually get pointed at us and trained on us and used on us, the civilians. The road to Hell is being paved as we speak.
Speaking of the need to use your social security number everywhere, well....do you ever feel like not a citizen of this country, but a SUSPECT of this country. That's because that is what we all are now. Suspects. Potential terrorists. Every traffic stop has the potential to go militaristic. We are ALL guilty of something.
The decades of "tough on crime" legislation which has been rammed down our throats means that any one of us can be detained and have our lives destroyed if the government comes after us for our ideas, opinions, and freedom of speech.
The men who founded this country were radicals, liberals who believed deeply in something called liberty and despised tyranny of kings or governments.
And just because the conservatives who have been trying to destroy this country for the past six years took a hit this past election is no means for celebration. Both parties think government dominating it's people and endlessly restricting their liberty is a good thing.
Eventually, there will have to be another American Revolution.
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mr a macneil 1:06PM (12/09/2006)
This is another tool in the arsenal of state control. All of our right are slowly being eroded away. The rights that our grandparents had are gone, we now have state control over almost everything we do, the excuse given for this is either that it catches criminal, or stops terrorists, but are we realy happy to live in a state where so many are being victimised by so few, we have the most cctv cameras in the world, we are being watched all the time, our mobile phones are being tracked, when we use a credit card, or bank card, we leave a foot print, our car number plates are recorded wherever we go, unfortunately terrorists and criminals know about this, they dont use credit cards, they dont drive registered cars and they look out for cctv cameras, if the excuse that it catches criminals and terrorist had any truth, we would have seen a mass reduction in crime over the past twenty years, yet we are constantly told that crime is going up, so it seems like the whole population being under survalance is of no benifit to stopping crime. It leaves me wondering if our security services and our police see themselves as protecters of the public, or agents of the state
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