HMP Britain - Under New Labour Plans

The United Kingdom continues down a dangerous road towards a police state, with the 'New Labour' government continuing to ignore objections from high ranking civil figures and civil rights groups.

The latest erosion that is the introduction of On-street fingerprint scanner, which are the size of a mobile phone. The technology will enable the state to identify you within seconds of your stop, a technology which would have been on Hilter's Wish List. 

The technology has already been trailed in a similar format by 20 forces in England and Wales and is being sold as usual to an unsuspecting public as a time saving device for police during arrest, at crime scenes and at post mortems, rather than a severe breach of civil liberty.

As with all New Labour policies it is to be introduced using salami tactics, slice by slice and in this instance it would appear that the first stage is to allow voluntary participation and prohibit the storage of the images taken. However, how many believe a government that now control a society with more CCTV per head of population and regulate one of the world's largest DNA databases, despite public opposition.

The mobile fingerprint scanner known as the Lantern has been piloted since 2006 and has now been rolled out to include 20 police forces. The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) is responsible for the schemes roll-out, and has heralded the trials as a "stunning success", indicating that in the vast amount of cases, people co-operated with the checks. However campaigners against the scheme have stated, "..refusing to co-operate can get you arrested, then you would have not just fingerprints but DNA on a criminal database for the rest of your life." Furthermore the government indicate that the devices will compare fingerprints against the records of the 7.5m people on the police national biometric database but have failed to state whether those who are stopped, but not on this database, will then be arrested and by default added to this database.

So a technology which has dangerous implications to civil rights and freedom of movement and which the government claim is essential to policing, is being used how? 

Well at present, it is being used alongside other technology such as the automatic number plate recognition systems to check the identities of people in vehicles flagged up as uninsured, untaxed or lacking a valid MoT. A softly, softly approach to the introduction of what can only be considered as dangerous, especially in the hands of a government, who have already utilised terror laws against friendly nations, allowed raids on opposition offices at parliament and overseen an investigation which saw an elected member of parliament recorded without his knowledge or consent, despite the law. By using just these two technologies together, the state has indicated that of all those stopped as part of the pilot scheme, the state identified over 87% within minutes.  

If this technology is allowed to be introduced, it could see you and your children serving life in Her Majesty's Prison Britain.

Last Updated: 8th October 2009