UK Police Implement Roadside Fingerprinting Tools 191
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."
On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
"Sir, it says here you have an elevated chance of alcoholism in your family. Please come with us."
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I'm no lawyer, but the courts have ruled time and time again that roadside breathalyser tests are legal. The basic idea is that you don't have to consent to a breathalyser test; however, the police equally don't have to let you go if they suspect you'd fail it. Essentially you are within your Constitutional right to refuse one, but the police are also within their authority to arrest you on the spot (since they have probable cause) and you'll have to explain yourself to the judge, while the cop tells that judge his estimation of whether or not you were impaired at the time you refused the breathalyser.
I imagine that roadside "dip-sticking" and roadside fingerprinting would fall under the same category.
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
Step 2: Profit
Step 3: ???
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
Ok most of my sources are tv shows where the police are followed and seen to work, but i've seen enough different shows to notice the idea is
1. you may take the beatherliser test
2. if you decide not you, then you are over the limit and placed under arrest, taken to the station where you are given a (more acuturate) blood test and then if you fail this, your taken to court etc.
You dont get taken to court for not taking a beatherliser, however, if you become abusive
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the UK law is similar to the U.S. law in this regard. I did leave the part out about being subjected to the (more accurate) blood test in some U.S. states for purposes of simplicity, and I'm pretty sure its required in the U.K. if you refuse the breathalyser.
(It's important to remember that criminal law in th
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
He said, if you know you're over the limit, the best thing to do, is not say a word, but, just hold your wrists out, and let them take you in. You refuse to take any field tests, no breathalizer tests or blood tests.
He said all this is doing, is gathering evidence to be used against you. You are going to jail anyway since as someone mentioned, they do have
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:3, Informative)
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
Hm, does that mean that if you have an international licence you're exempt from breathalyser tests?
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
You don't have to agree to a Breathalyzer test, but they don't have to agree to license you to drive either.
There was a case a few years ago in Volusia County in which a chief of police was driving drunk (quite drunk according to the reports)
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:3, Informative)
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
The core legal issue here in the US (and probably other places) is that driving a car is not a funadamental "right". It is a "privilege" granted by the state.
The 5th amendment definitely applies. That is why they cannot force you to submit to a search (breathalyzer, blood test, etc.) without a warrant.
But, since it is a privilege to drive, and not a right, they can revoke that privilege if you refuse a
Re:On the Fly UA & Blood Tests (Score:2)
link? (Score:4, Funny)
Probable cause (Score:2)
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.
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Re:Probable cause (Score:5, Insightful)
See? They promise not to abuse their power, so it's all okey-dokey. They won't put all your information in a huge database and track your every move until the day you lie deep in the cold, cold ground and are no longer a threat.
Probable cause? What a quaint, old-fashioned notion! Today, if you really piss them off, they can just call you an enemy combatant and disappear your ass to Gitmo. You can talk to your extreme renditioner "Mr Smith" about probable cause all day long while he's making you think you're going to drown and hooking your nuts up to a car battery. Don't fret, though. If you haven't done anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about. Just sit back, relax, and watch your rights sail out the window like everyone else's while we band together to bring those big bad terrorists, immigrants, uninsured motorists, pedophiles, deadbeat dads, and jaywalkers to justice.
Jebus, people. This is really getting out of control.
Re:Probable cause (Score:4, Insightful)
I know. But like the frog slowly being brought to boil not enough people will get this until it is too late. Heck, it probably is too late already. I worry all the time about this and although the majority of people I know and work with agree to some extent nobody is really in a position to do anything about it. Who wants to stick their neck out and maybe get arrested and banned from travelling for instance?
Conclusion: we're screwed and it will only get worse.
PS: As a typical
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People around here are (rightfully) always quoting the Constitution. Allow me to take a line or two from one of our other venerated documents.
Blue LEDs? (Score:2)
Blue LEDs!
Now I have to rethink my position...
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I know this because I have intimate knowledge of the system used.
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Re:Probable cause (Score:4, Informative)
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Just because you are charged doesn't mean that you committed a crime. The FBI keeps more than just crime-related prints: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAFIS [wikipedia.org]
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The point is this - of course pedophiles and terrorists are bad. Real pedophiles and terrorists that is, not the spectres of terrorism and pedophilia that are held up and shaken around in front of your eyes as boogeymen of the week to keep you in line.
If you really think any of the thinly disguised rights-grabbing that's going on these days has anything to do with actual threats - brother, you have got some waking up to do.
They'll drag out "implied consent." (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Next morning, tired and battered from a night in the cells, are you going to accuse a police officer of lying or are you going to take 'being bound over to keep the peace' for the sake of a quiet life. Believe me, it's a no brainer when you're there.
What about a driver's license? (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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not true at all.
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Me, too.
This may be unique to the UK, Europe or just non-American states (I'm assuming the "self-evident" GP is in the USA & I have no idea how it is there) but no-one I know carries their documents when they drive. Not my parents, not anybody. All my driving documents stay in a single plastic file at home and if I get pulled for speeding then the nice police office gives me a "producer", a form that requires me to produce my documents
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Nowadays they have an Intarweb PDA-type thingy and they can put your reg. no. in and see straight away who your car is registered to, if it is untaxed and who your insurance is with, and so on. I assume that if the car comes up as uninsured, or anything, or if the reg. doesn't match the make, model and colour of car, you're nicked sunshine. Or at least, on the "right-wing-indignant-smug-people-watching-chavs- a nd-nerdowells-getting-lifted-by-the-traffic-cops!" TV programmes, that's what happens.
Re:What about a driver's license? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you are stopped by the Police whilst driving, you can be required to produce your documents (Driving Licence, Insurance & MOT) at a Police Station within seven days. Only newer Driving Licences have photographs.
If you are stopped by the Police you will be asked your name, address and date of birth.
Re:What about a driver's license? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this what a Driver's License is for? Or do British not have licenses (or not require that drivers carry licenses)?
No, you aren't required to carry it with you, but are supposed to produce it on request within a certain number of days.
However, it is clear to me that this is aimed at forcing the adoption of biometric ID cards (or more accurately the ID database behind it), just in smaller steps.
In short this is step one of the "Barcode Britain" process.
A parallel step is happening in 2008, where non-EU nationals in the UK will require an ID card to receive several services [bbc.co.uk], but eu people won't, but the obvious question is how will someone prove they are an eu nationals? Result - forcing people to get an ID card in order so they don't need to show ID card. Only a government can think that twisted!
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Oh wait...
In-patrol-car computers? (Score:3, Interesting)
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,
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While all new issue drivers licenses in the UK are photocard licenses, this has only been the case for around six or seven years. Licenses issued prior to that don't have an associated photo, and there's no law requiring replacement of licenses over time. These two factors together effectively make such a database (even if o
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The idea is to fish for as many crimes as possible to increase their score. As we all know, arrests raise your rank on the server.
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The problem the government says this system is addressing is that sometimes people lie about their identity and try to pretend they are someone else so there is no come back when they don't turn up at the station wi
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Umm, that's rather what they do now....
COP: "Dispatch
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The UK only adopted a photo based driver's license in the last...8 years maybe? What's interesting about that is the photo was added because the European Union decided to standardize licenses with a photograph--time and time again, the British claimed that they had no need to have a photo based license and that their non-photo paper licenses worked just fine. (Unlike North American style non-pho
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Think about it, we're trying to address a simple problem: We'd like to ascertain, to a reasonable level of confidence, that people driving their cars a) have a valid license and b) valid insurance.
Most other countries in the world solve this problem by saying that you need to carry your driving license and car papers when you drive, and show them when asked.
In Britain, they give you seven days to show them at a police stat
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However these days the police can check who owns the car who is insured to drive the car when the MOT expires when the road tax expires just by running the registration plate.
they have access to all the necessary databases to do this, it's just not possible to "produce" a cover note for insurance or MOT as it was in the old days no matter who you
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Re:What about a driver's license? (Score:4, Informative)
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The police already have access to all the information they need regarding vehicles and ownership. They have computerised records that show whether a vehicle is insured and by whom.
Those records also show whether the vehicle has an MOT.
The registered keeper is also part of the same record. If you doubt the insurance claims I just made, go here [vehiclelicence.gov.uk] and follow the link to "How do we check Insurance,new style MOT Test Certificates and GVT Test Certificates?" (sorry no li
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/21/number_pl
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Gattica (Score:2)
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.
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Call me old fashioned... (Score:5, Informative)
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Being insured is a state of the driver, not the vehicle. To imply that "not being on a database of cars that have been named by somebody as their primary vehicle when purchasing insurance" is equivalent to being "subject to an offence" is just wrong. This technique throws up a huge number of both false positives and false negatives.
If the driver does not convince police
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> by somebody as their primary vehicle when purchasing insurance" is equivalent to being "subject to an offence" is just wrong.
> This technique throws up a huge number of both false positives and false negatives.
That may be true for insurance, but in the UK, every car is required to have "road tax" paid on it. The tax is paid on the car, not the driver. If the register
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True, but in this case there's no need to identify the driver, is there? So I don't see why fingerprinting the driver would be useful
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And siezure laws are worded very carefully because of that. You aren't guilty of not registering, the car is. And since it has no due process rights... yoink!
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In the UK, all insurance is with the driver. On *most* policies, you must give the details of a specific car to be covered. But there are multiple variations. You can get:
* Insurance that will allow any qualified driver to drive your vehicle (usually with the restriction t
Privacy Doesn't Exist (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Yeah (Score:2)
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.
function-creep (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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The wireless check takes a few minutes and is conducted at the scene, from TFA.
> to entitlement to emergency medical care
Much as I deplore the current big-brother creep in UK society, I don't thing we're anywhere, anywhere near denying emergency medical care to anyone.
the privacy game will soon be over (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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The privacy game ended years ago as far as junk mail goes. No matter how many times I move house I still get junk mail addressed to me...
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We're getting closer and closer to such systems
Records won't be kept. LOL (Score:2)
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.
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Or worse, that you didn't get laid at all??
No, reverse that...
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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 mu
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Remember, if you smoke after sex, you're doing it too fast.
So, lets review for a moment. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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"360 helmet cams for police."
This will make it easier to record people who actually are committing crimes as well as stopping the police from doing illegal searches or tasering people (because all the evidence of their acts will be there for the court to see). Police state? no.
"RFID tags in department stores"
That they remove when you buy the product - it stops theft and causes no problems for anyone else. Police state? no.
"Video surveillance on mo
ID cards (Score:2)
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I guess someone in the government must be waiting for the people to say something like this. I feel it is just a tactic to push for the proposed national ID card in UK. Maybe embedding a IC tag to the back of the head of everyone (like pets) does not seem to be a very far-fetching idea....
Good (Score:2)
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Here they use them in a different way. Each week or so, a list of wanted criminals (that is, with a search order released by a judge), is updated, an
Book 'em? (Score:2)
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?
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Typical (Score:5, Informative)
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.
They will use this for any reason whatsoever (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [timesonline.co.uk], 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 [bbc.co.uk] 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 [209.85.135.104]. 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?
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Back in the 90s when I was a teenager, my father, who was only in his 50s or so at the time, told me that he wasn't driving anymore because he was afraid someone would intentionally crash into him for the insurance money or something (I only half paid attention because I thought he was being rediculously paranoid.
You couldn't make it up [bbc.co.uk].
He should ask the doctor for some pills.
Police states. (Score:2, Troll)
I think part of the problem is that the socialist governments of Euro
Maybe I'm missing something (Score:2, Insightful)
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If they don't retain fingerprint data, just what exactly are they matching the drivers' fingerprints to?
If they don't have your print, they can't check it's you, but they can run it against ever fingerprint every taken (about 6.5m at the moment) and if you are unluckly enough to match someone who has committed a crime, you're toasted until you can prove you're not them (at which stage why not put your unique prints so this doesn't happen again, sir?
The article says it's 95% accurate, so if your prints
fingerprints are not sufficiently distinguishable (Score:2)
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Of course, being as you get your DNA and fingerprints taken for simply being arrested (not charged), thousands of innocent people are already on the criminal database.
Everyone who's ever been *arrested* (Score:2)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/26/dna_datab
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fingerprinting doesn't work for ab-initio ID (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
The Catch 22 with this system (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
ID Surveillance System - told you so (Score:4, Insightful)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6170070.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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.