Police Stop Fingerprint..

doofer · 22 Nov 2006 at 19:31

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6170070.stm

What next, held for 24hr interrogation on why you went 3MPH over the limit?

Whilst I have nothing to hide from the Law.. I still am highly concerened at the 'competence' factor regarding this sort of thing, one simple error on a database and your prints could easily be Osama Bin Laden's. Scary.

Entai · 22 Nov 2006 at 19:36

Police Minister Tony McNulty said: "The new technology will speed up the time it takes for police to identify individuals at the roadside, enabling them to spend more time on the frontline and reducing any inconvenience for innocent members of the public."

If the driver does not convince police he is giving them a correct name, they will fingerprint him and verify his identity on the spot, instead of taking him to the police station.

But surely if the person has never been fingerprinted before they will not be on the database so this will not tell the police anything they did not already know and they will still have to go to the police station, so how will it save any time???

Edit:
In fact it will now mean that only if you are innocent of anything before and not on the database, will you have to waste yours and the polices time by going into the station to be cleared.

Puzzled · 22 Nov 2006 at 19:44

If any of you watch those traffic cop programs, you'll notice how they say how they're always stopping the same people and how each time they give a fake name.

Everytime they do that the cops have to take them to the station, with this once they been caught they'll be able to identify them easily.

I don't like the idea of having to give a fingerprint at the scene, but if it gets some of the scum of the roads then so be it.

Rhyzz · 22 Nov 2006 at 19:49

If you have nothing to hide then it's the best new procedure that the police have introduced for a long time. It'll get the scumbags with no insurance/license/MOT off the road, those who have skipped bail, etc etc.

The list is endless for what this system could do for the police and the public. Yes it's a massive infringement on human rights (as far as I can see anyway) but I don't care. I'm not in that database, I've never been pulled anyway and I sure as hell cannot condem the police for trying to get the idiots off the road and keep decent people safe.

Conscript · 22 Nov 2006 at 19:51

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security, would deserve neither, and lose both" - Benjamin Franklin

IainB · 22 Nov 2006 at 20:29

They are trialling that just about a mile from me, well known shortcut (Woodside Industrial Estate for those that know it) and well used as a race track at night... be good if they can get some of the scum off the roads round here!

Stellios · 22 Nov 2006 at 20:32

As long as its just to compare against their current database, and not to update it i dont see the problem. If its better for catching criminals then i dont see why people would be against it.

ChoÞÞer · 22 Nov 2006 at 20:32

mm not bad... looks alright, woo they aint doing it in my area :cool:

Entai · 22 Nov 2006 at 20:40

IainB said:
They are trialling that just about a mile from me, well known shortcut (Woodside Industrial Estate for those that know it) and well used as a race track at night... be good if they can get some of the scum off the roads round here!

A guy who works here at Millbrook says he often goes down there in his Astra turbo.
He is always bragging about overtaking police cars, he says at ridiculous speeds, and never being followed.
Hopfully one day his luck will run out, just hope no one else is around when it does, because from being in his car once he will kill someone if he is not carefull.

SB118 · 22 Nov 2006 at 20:44

Stellios said:
As long as its just to compare against their current database, and not to update it i dont see the problem. If its better for catching criminals then i dont see why people would be against it.

^^ Couldn't have out it better.

Prove you aren't a criminal to the police? "That's against my HUMAN RIGHTS!!!!!"232413241"

Fr0dders · 22 Nov 2006 at 20:48

have you seen roadwars ?

so many criminals get off offences by giving false details. You must have seen how many times they try it on. Sometimes they cant establish their identiry at all, bail them because they cant actually charge them, and they just end up slipping through the system. At least fingerprints will stop this "my name is dave rimmer" malarky.

JTrickle · 22 Nov 2006 at 21:02

Loss of liberty implications /= paltry £2.2m

Whos it going to catch? Crookes too dumb/stoned to say no?

Whats it going to save me if I get stopped personally, a two minute wait? Thin end of the wedge. I wouldnt trust the government in anything they claim now after they have lied through their teeth on so much recently.

McB@in · 22 Nov 2006 at 21:04

but they only fingerprint you if you give false details. Dont do that and there will be no need to go anywhere other than home :confused:

Maz · 22 Nov 2006 at 21:42

Good Idea me thinks

Saying that though, I love the British Police it makes my crotch all warm and fuzzy thinking that the £1k+ Tax I pay is being put to a good use............NOT

Duke · 22 Nov 2006 at 21:45

Shame they have to do this but if it helps getting scum off the roads then i'm for it.

Geoff · 22 Nov 2006 at 22:04

McB@in said:
but they only fingerprint you if you give false details. Dont do that and there will be no need to go anywhere other than home

According to the police, they'll fingerprint you if they THINK you gave them false details, which isn't quite the same thing.

Provided this is used as currently described (i.e. it's voluntary, and scanned prints aren't retained), then I can't see the civil liberty issue. After all, you can always decline to be printed, in which case, you'll probably be arrested, and that is the current situation anyway.

So what this really boils down to is that if the police doubt your story, print you and it comes back "unknown", it increases your chances of being sent on your way with minimal interruption.

My real concerns are :-

- it won't stay voluntary
- scans will start getting retained

It's like so many things ("safety" cameras, for instance). They start out as small-scale projects with apperent good intentions, and turn into a behemoth that's totally out of control. Was this technology is piloted, and the kinks ironed out, it'll be rolled out large-scale and made an offence to decline to be scanned.

And the next step will be a compulsory database (the ID card database, no doubt) which will not just provide details if you're on record because you've previously been a naughty boy (or girl) but will confirm everybody's id.

THis technology has proved very effective and useful in the US, but there, you have the situation of state and federal jurisdictions, and a lot of criminals getting away with serious crimes simply by moving to another state where they weren't known. Now, these scans go to the FBI's NCIC database and such anomalies are much less common. But here, that sort of problem doesn't exist, or at least, not on anything like the same scale.

But it will have payback in those sorts of terms. Someone stopped for a simple motoring offence and scanned will get nicked if they are wanted for a totally unrelated incident at the other end of the country.

So, there's good and bad. Personally, I'm currently undecided as to whether the good justifies the bad.

Von Smallhausen · 23 Nov 2006 at 00:14

There are many people out there that will give false details and also, if they are serious enough, will have credentials as well to help cover their real identity.

This technology is little different to the Livescan system being introduced across the country in custody areas where people's fingerprints, taken when they are arrested or charged, are taken on a machine that correlates that the person being dealt with is actually the person they say they are.

As for the OP, there are no records of any fingerprint being the same on the national database and as for being mistaken for Osama Bin Laden ? What are the odds

robmiller · 23 Nov 2006 at 00:15

Stellios said:
As long as its just to compare against their current database, and not to update it i dont see the problem. If its better for catching criminals then i dont see why people would be against it.

Would you be in favour of a tagging system that tracked every citizen's movements and recorded all of their conversations? After all, it would completely stop crime.

robmiller · 23 Nov 2006 at 00:16

Von Smallhausen said:
As for the OP, there are no records of any fingerprint being the same on the national database and as for being mistaken for Osama Bin Laden ? What are the odds

The handheld scanners are 94% accurate; there's at least some margin for error there, albeit a relatively slim one.

Von Smallhausen · 23 Nov 2006 at 00:21

robmiller said:
The handheld scanners are 94% accurate; there's at least some margin for error there, albeit a relatively slim one.

Ok then.

Lets say that you are mistaken for someone else who is on the fingerprint database and that person is wanted on PNC for, say, drugs offences and you are arrested. The person who is wanted and is on the fingerprint database will also be on the DNA database so a sample from you will not match that of his. The odds of having identical DNA are almost impossible.

The situation I give though is highly unlikely to happen.