Slashdot Mirror
UK Police Implement Roadside Fingerprinting Tools
mormop writes to tell us the BBC is reporting that police in the UK have implemented a pilot program that allows officers to fingerprint drivers using a small handheld scanner connected to a database of approximately 6.5 million prints. From the article: "Officers promise prints will not be kept on file but concerns have been raised about civil liberties. [...] It is primarily aimed at motorists because banned or uninsured drivers often give false names, although pedestrians could also be asked to give prints if they are suspected to have committed an offence."
My work here is dung.
will i get fingerprinted if i ask for link?
always mosh clockwise
although pedestrians could also be asked to give prints if they are suspected to have committed an offence.
In the US the police need "probable cause" but they usually just make that up if you object to a search or some other privacy infringing action.
Am I missing something (which is possible, since there's no article to reference), or are they spending a ton of money to solve a problem with a simple solution?
... meaning they wouldn't have been caught by the finger printing method either.
Their rational is that "it is primarily aimed at motorists because banned or uninsured drivers often give false names". Isn't this what a Driver's License is for? Or do British not have licenses (or not require that drivers carry licenses)?
If someone doesn't have a license, or any other form of photo identification, they probably shouldn't be driving. It sounds like it would be far cheaper (and less of a privacy concern) to haul in anybody driving without a valid photo ID, since these people are more likely to be uninsured or banned.
Or if the thought of hauling in folks without IDs is unappealing (since many people just forget to carry IDs), police could just ask the person a few key questions (such as name, address, city, maybe some type of social security #), which would be in the police database. Then this could be cross referenced against the auto registration. Seems easy to verify that the individual is telling the truth using existing data without resorting to finger prints.
Of course, you could have someone who stole their neighbors car + memorized their name/address/social, but this type of person would have probably created a good fake ID as well
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
Should they consider using either a mouth swab or finger prick to get DNA from each motorist? Fingerprints are so 20th century.
BTW - any progress on requiring mandatory dander and skin sampling from the cars interior as well as personal clothing to determine likely associations, so that a UK-wide personal interaction map? You know they've thought of it, but just haven't figured out the logistics for a full roll-out.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
but the summary isn't that good.
Privacy is a myth.
I did a search a for a company I hadn't done business with in 10 years (no kidding) and visited their website for the first time ever and a week later their catalog showed up in the mail.
Somehow they had the cookies and partnerships to identify me and send me a catalog in my name.
If that's the extent of privacy anyway, then I have no problem with people being stopped with reason being required to give fingerprints. In fact, I think the same should be required on any flight entering or leaving the country, if it isn't already. And those should be stored.
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Officers promise prints will not be kept on file
Oh. Well. That's OK then. (glazed happy stare)
Wait. Why is my tail all bushy? Spidey sense tingling.
Hmmm this isn't good. I wonder if they will simply record the prints for checking against a db later, or if they have wireless abilities to check for a match at the scene? If they don't then they soon will.
That technology would be very likely to be subject to function-creep. I could imagine a lot of situations where it might be argued that on-the-spot print-matching would protect 'us', from age-checks when buying alcohol, to entitlement to emergency medical care, and more.
I am afraid that way too many people will cheerfully abandon privacy if they think it will save them in tax.
Not that I am paranoid, or anything.
It is only a matter of time until a suitable technology arises that can accurately verify identities in a non intrusive way.
For example:
Everybody knows that the one who does the technological breakthrough will be very rich - it is only a matter of time. Then we human beings will be exactly like cars- with an (invisible) license plate.
On the good side,
Once we have a completely transparent society of where everyone goes and what everyone does, perhaps it will be more difficult for a lot of fun behavior to be outlawed.
In the past, everyone did stuff (adultery -- 50% of men AND women by the 7th year of marriage) but pretended it didn't happen and was a bad thing.
In the new future, your life will be an open book.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
There also was that street fee thing, but I forget what that was all about. Sounds like the beginnings of a police state to me.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I bet mandatory ID cards don't sound like such a bad idea now...
I can see it now in the US, Fingerprinting Checkpoints.... or law enforcement can take another angle and simply integrate this technology into existing DUI check points.... hence protecting the children and fighting terrorists all at the same time. Of course, fingerprinting devices, like all other devices, will be quickly defeated with simple, commercially available aids (such as acrylics) for those who really want to beat such a device. The only people this will affect are the average imperfect, trying to abide by the laws they dont understand/know exist, citizens. On a positive note, those are the ones who actually pay the fines, so kudo's for the new innovation to help make local/state/fed government more money.
20th century Marxism is not progress...
use fingerprints for everything, then when databases start geting comprimized, they will relized it won't work and give up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
although pedestrians could also be asked to give prints if they are suspected to have committed an offence.
Last time I checked, standard procedure with pedestrians etc was to bring them in to the police off, then - if need be - fingerprint them. What's the benefit in most cases of doing so on-scene?
I submitted this 6 hours before this one was sumbitted.... but because scuttlemonkey is a regular submitter mine gets binned and it included the link to the BBC story as well.
Yes I know I'm going to get modded down.... but as it seems to be only the favourites here who are allowed to submit... sod it.
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
Do you ever get the feeling that we are actually living in a rather clever dystopia? Not just that we are heading towards 1984 or a Brave New World, but that we are already there and are just too distracted by the entertainments and mundane routines of daily life to really stop and look around and fully examine what is going on with the world today. Do we in fact live in a dystopia now? Not just "in another 10 years", but right now.
They say " pedestrians could also be asked to give prints if they are suspected to have committed an offence".
Considering that anyone can be suspected of anything, this opens the gates for totally random fingerprinting in the street. We already have random checks and detentions for the flimsiest of reasons. Consider the 34 year old woman labeled a terrorist for walking along a cycle path, the stopping and searching of an 11 year old girl near an RAF base, "the detention of a 21 year old student for taking pictures of the M3 motorway for a web-design company", the ejection of an 82 year old man at the 2005 Labour Party conference, and the detention of an 80-year-old man carrying an anti-Blair placard, for example. If you refuse, the precedents set by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Terrorism Act 2000, and Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 would ensure it unlikely you'd get off scott-free but instead become more of a suspect.
Still, I'm not going to do anything about it other than complain about it online, as is my wont. In another 50 years when I'm eating my Soylent Green in my 29th-floor bugged apartment, I can pull out ruffled print-outs of Web pages like these, and think back to a time when at least my bowel movements weren't RFID tagged and scanned for prohibited substances.
Basically, the British government is corrupt to the core and bordering on fascist. But.. what government isn't these days?
They'll just invent some form of "implied consent" just like they do when you're driving a car.
Eventually it's going to get to the point where just by walking out of your house in the morning, you're going to automatically "consent" to being fingerprinted, having your DNA sequenced, your retinas scanned, and your anus probed; and if you don't, they'll invent some sort of punishment for noncompliance. Or just Mace the hell out of you and do it anyway.
Sure, they'll say, you don't have to consent -- you can just live inside your house 24/7. Just like, theoretically, you can walk everywhere instead of driving a car. By creating a totally impractical straw man, they allow you a "choice" to give up your rights, only without any other realistic option.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Big brother is watching you! Its getting pretty close to people now wanting as much information about you as they want. How about connecting nodes to our heads or a "head scanner". Now that is dangerous, they'lll probably try and read our thoughts. For people who are behaving deceptively and trying to avoid the law, they're the only ones who are going to lose out. Is the average Joe going to be concerned really?
http://www.webexperts.co.nz
Seems like the easier solution, and the far less creepy one, is just to hook the police cars up with terminals that communicate with the drivers-license database, including its photos.
When you get pulled over, you'd either present your license, which they could then take back to their patrol car (or just note the number) and run into the system to find if it's suspended, or if you forgot your license, they could look you up based on name/address/DOB and using the photo attached to the record in the system, see that it's you. That also makes it harder to use a fake license, since it wouldn't come up in the system, or to use someone else's license, because the photo on the record wouldn't be you. It also lets the police use a much bigger / higher quality photo (on the screen) for identification, than the crappy one on the license itself.
That wouldn't require any more data collection than what they assumedly have already (assuming they use photographic drivers licenses and that the photos are digitized), and it doesn't involve sampling previously uncollected data from lots of people. Randomly fingerprinting people is tres creepy, in my opinion.
I've never really looked too hard at the systems in use here in the U.S., but I think that they work something like this. (The cities that have in-car computer systems, anyway.) I'm sure that whoever makes these systems would be happy to demo them in Britain.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Yeah, but would you WANT anyone to know you'd laid another slashdotter??
Or worse, that you didn't get laid at all??
No, reverse that...
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
the system is crap anyhow as it can only detect people who have fingerprints on the system (approx 6 million) so if they don't have your fingerprints already you can just give fake name etc and they'll be none the wiser.
;-p
another fantastically thought out waste of time and money.
oh how i love living here
Guilty until proven innocent!
People like to go on about the US turning into some sort of police state despite the fact that there haven't really been open moves in that direction. What's the worst Americans have seen? More thorough searches at airports? There are too many who vehemently and vocally oppose that sort of thing for it to gain real traction. Interestingly, it seems to be Europe where we're seeing burgeoning police states. Case in point: the United Kingdom.
I think part of the problem is that the socialist governments of Europe tend to think it's their responsibility to watch over the citizens. Individual freedoms are irrelevant when it's for the greater good. I've seen public safety materials which essentially depict the citizens as children who the parent, government, needs to watch over.
If the US starts heading in that same direction it's because the citizens demand it. They want to be absolved of personal responsibility and instead demand the government watch over them. Either that, or they'll be too obsessed with self-indulgence to bother with being responsible for anything. I'm sure there are many in government who look forward to this. The US is already almost at that point, but I think it's harder to stop something when it's the government forcing it on the people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm Unfortunately it seems it is only audio and limited to the UK.
"Officers promise..."
BZZZT! Thanks for playing. Next idea...
If they don't retain fingerprint data, just what exactly are they matching the drivers' fingerprints to?
... just like in Gattaca.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
mormop submitted it
scuttlemonkey's just some poor editor
Well... as the old saying goes,
Even bad sex is pretty good.
And I imagine most slashdotters, being geeky, have read Donald Hick's (which I first got by bit-torrent in a collection of 137 other similar books on technique) outstanding work on the g-spot and other similar excellent books*.
One would hope more than average of them are pretty open-minded and have active fantasy lives too.
Not so sure about the hygiene part tho.
---
* The top two books I got through BT in the last 3 years resulted in a mind-blowing multi-hour g-spot orgasm for her and the ability to multi-o for me. The second is a cute trick. You learn how to use your pc muscles (the ones you work with kegel excersizes) to turn off ejaculating until you want to do so. Once you have that down you can keep getting aroused all day long until you actually do allow your self release. Both are reasonably priced off of Amazon (like under $10 used). I think the second one has a title like "how to make love all night" and is written by a female sex therapist.
I know it is off-topic but Donald Hick's book is *amazing* stuff. It covers the emotional aspects as well as the physical aspects. A complete 10 step roadmap of what to do- what not to do- and what to look for before proceeding to the next step each time. For her it was clearly a deeply spiritual experience. I can only wonder what it's like from the outside myself.
Apologies for gushing. B)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Some states require thumbprints when you get a driver's license.
It's not technically hard to give the police a cell-phone-like device that can pull up these prints.
Once they do that, they can manually inspect the actual finger and compare it to the on-screen print.
If it doesn't match, either the driver's license, the fingerprint database, or the driver is wrong.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Sky news have a video of the bastard things http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,3 0100-prints_221106_0900,00.html via http://i.have.no.com/2006-11-22/police-pilot-roads ide-fingerprinting/
Some areas of the U.S. have these hand held FP scanners too.
Mixed feelings here, but I lean towards saying "This is a good thing". People "slip through the cracks" all the time. They are pulled over and let go because their warrants didn't show up cause all the crime databases aren't tied together or they are using a stolen identity. Then they go murder someone. Or an illegal alien is pulled over and booked on minor offenses many times, but he has a 52-card deck of false Social Security numbers and Mexican Consular ID cards. So hes back on the road, drinking and driving the wrong way on a 1 way street with no license, and eventually kills a whole family of American citizens. When all along, if they had positive ID on him, he never would have had this opportunity. You don't think this happens too often? You better think again and do some research then. It happens ALL the time. Its just that the media is loathe to admit and publish their illegal status, unless its a really high profile case.
I'm as paranoid as the next nerd, and I don't trust government to do the right thing with the information they collect from us, but I believe that we need to be able to positively ID people in order to maintain a civilized society.
It's a big scam anyway, that most people do not realize:
Do you really need a Driver's License?
Outside my area of interest, but would appear to show that pleasure is largely related to self-control and anticipation, rather than just barging right on through. Probably a good general philosophy at that.
:)
Remember, if you smoke after sex, you're doing it too fast.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Although I think a fingerprint can be used to distinguish among a small number of people, it has never been demonstrated, to my knowledge, to be useable to locate a person in a multi-million-person database. The US and UK pretend to have this capability, but I don't think it has ever been demonstrated in a public (much less peer-reviewed, double-blind) test. If I am wrong, please reply to this with references.
Routine, un-targeted fingerprinting of this kind is a method for scaring people, not catching people.
David W. Hogg -- assoc prof, NYU Physics
We're already the most watched (ie under surveillance from static cameras here, there and who knows where) nation on the planet, now this. While I can see the point of cracking down on banned (etc) drivers, stopping people in the street to take their fingerprints because they are suspected of committing an offence, well where does that start and end..? Brown pickpockets us while Blair takes our pictures.
From this article:
Ah phew, I have nothing to worry about! Seriously, do people still use that argument?
Well, I'm reassured. We certainly couldn't do without yet another bit of pernicious, unnecessary legislation. And only £2.6m! Bargain!
The best part about this is that if you refuse the roadside test, they can arrest you, take you back to the station and get your FULL fingerprints (rather than the index finger only that the roadside test takes).
I find it pretty disgusting that the first time we hear of the system its already out there and ready to be used. What happened to discussing these things, getting opinions, considering the implications. Or dare I say was it rushed out to avoid exactly those kinds of questions.
If you're arrested, your prints and DNA are recorded and go on the database permanently. Even if you're never charged, the charges are dropped or you're found innocent in court, there's no way to be removed unless it's subsequently proven that *no crime had ever taken place*.
a se_removal/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/26/dna_datab
What they don't mention is whether the scanned fingerprint with be held in a database for further use, and if so what limits there are on that use.....
I believe that some of the plate recognition systems are based on a list (nominally on CD) of stolen or unlicensed cars. When one of these cars passes a camera then the system alerts the operator. No major problem in my mind with this.... However when they move to recording the plates of all users into a database I have a problem.
The government has no purpose tracking my movements (assuming I'm not a criminal or on some terrorist list). Unfortunately data sticks (or is that stinks).
Does the same follow through to the finger print scanner. Ie. not recording my print if it's not matched and not recording that fact that a check was done at time/location...
You know, at first I was against it, but nobody told me about there being blue LEDs.
Blue LEDs!
Now I have to rethink my position...
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
As you point out you're likely to get a near match with many fingerprints in the national crimes database. However what is not likely is that you'll also match the general description of the criminal for an outstanding unsolved crime ... also I imagine the police will need more than just a near-match of an index print to haul you in. You might get a Mondeo or Ford Transit parked outside your house for a day or two though!
Quote: "The portable gadgets - similar to a pocket PC and linked to a database of 6.5m prints - will enable officers to identify suspects within minutes".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6170070.stm
Well, like I always said - you can be identified with a remote device - the carrying of ID cards is a Red Herring.
You always carry your biometrics with you.
Our UK government will have effectively branded you with a unique number - like the Nazi's did to the Jews at Auschwitz.
Rather than being identified by a tattoo on arm - you will be identified with a scanner - like an animal that has been 'chipped'.
In their usual devious way - government will say it is because they 'care' for the safety of the public - when we know ID cards would not have stopped London bombing - nor did they stop Madrid.
This from a UK government that helped force their corrupt form of US friendly 'democracy' on Iraqi people - our government are no more than dictatorial authoritarian fascist reactionaries themselves.
This is not the sort of 'caring' that true democratic governments would want - one which keeps record of movements and associations of individual members of public - with no privacy.
As to the ID system itself:
With computing power doubling every year (and software/firmware enhancements) this identification will get down to seconds when National ID Surveillance System is compulsively introduced - even though database will increase ten-fold.
Even with current technology - using 1 finger it will correctly identify 19 out of 20 people (95%) - with 2 fingers it will increase accuracy to 19.95 out of 20 (i.e. correctly identifying 19 with no match out of 20 - or 99.75%) - with 3 fingers this will be near 100% accuracy.
NB: iris and 1 finger scan will produce similar accurate result.
The Australian 'Medicare Card' will soon have more information about you than your drivers licence. The Australian government has found an excellent way to introduce it too: After 2010 you won't be able to use any government services without a "Health and Social Services Smart Card". Expect this to be renamed several time before final deployment. It used to be called the 'access card' but due to privacy concerns it has been renamed.
2010, in a Centrelink Office near you:
CSO: Sir! You have an out of date card (piece of plastic with a medicare number and you name on it). Allow me to update it!
-- medicare card gets shredded --
-- centrelink card gets shredded --
CSO: Here you go sir! A brand new Smart! Card! It has your name, address, sex, race, DOB, home address, doctor's name, current medications, dates of most recent doctor's visits, family relationships and it's very secure!! We took a snapshot of you as you walked in the door and have encoded that on the card too. Don't worry sir: Only we can read this information (and the tax office, and any other government office or anyone who contracts to the government or who steals a card reader...)
The UK is moving towards presuming guilt until a person is proven innocent. Now that there are cameras everywhere, DNA/fingerprint evidence is very often available and strong encryption is freely available it seems suspicious when a person does anything to hinder the gathering of these types of evidence.
CCTV tapes were lost/damaged (as in the London Tube shooting/murder)? Refusal to "rule yourself out" by providing DNA evidence? Refusal to hand over your password? Refusal to give fingerprints at the roadside? Lost your Oyster card which could have proven you were not in the area? Refusal to say things which you later rely on in court?
The best thing would be to simply conscript everyone into the army at age 16, and keep them there until they earn their citizenship by proving they are not a criminal. Dying or being wounded in action would be enough I think.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There are about 60 million people in the UK, and this device is said to be connected to a database of 6.5 million prints. It seems to me that this will not "speed things up" at all, if about 90% of the time there will be no recognition from the machine. This looks rather like another excuse to collect biometric data on people for use later.
I reckon this is a smokescreen for testing the future UK ID card and trialling cross database functionality.
As previous comments have said, there are cheaper and already in-place ways of determining someones identity. That is, any offence has now become arrestable, so if a Police Officer thinks he cannot determine someone's identity he/she has the ability to arrest them, finger print and DNA test down at the local cop shop.
Like I said, I reckon these new fingerprint devices are being tested to see if they actually work with the coming National ID database and testing the data sharing of the future National ANPR (automatic number plate recognition)system, the PNC (Crime Database) and any other database they want to add to it.
You can bet that when our UK RFID ID Card comes in, the estimated 5 million CCTV camera's will be upgraded to log our ID every time we pass one, so everything we do, at any time will be logged as soon as we step out of our house.