montreal mike

I can't quite get over this but, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

Comments?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10..._fingerprints/

Novocastrian

No comments. I'm speechless.

montreal mike

I saw this on another UK forum so I figured I would share it here. The poster over there refered to it as a police state mentality and I think he does have a point.

Novocastrian

Well yes. But you have to wonder how they got to that point.

Rich_007

In the town of my former abode, they had police dogs sniffing out bar patrons and officers swabbing patrons hands for traces of illicit drugs. This was a condition of entry.

Aside from the fact than a majority of banknotes (apparently) have traces of cocaine on them which would make even old Granny Smith a likely arrest victim down at the Old Bull'n'Bush - the scheme was halted because business dropped off so badly at said drinking establishments. Police quoted the scheme as being a huge success. Of course, they would. Drug users habitual or otherwise drank elsewhere in town. It was a fantastic use of taxpayers money.

Media - "we're winning the war on drugs/terror/insert other post-modern social nightmare"
Bloke down the pub - "it's all bollocks mate"

Rich.

montreal mike

I've been away from the UK for some 44 years although I have visited often.

Next time I go over will I have to leave my fingerprints behind? The very idea is creepy.

Novocastrian

Well of course that's your choice. You don't have to go to a pub, do you?

I've been away (in the residence sense) for only 29 years, so I'm much more in touch with things than you mike.

welshchem

I can't see how this'll work. Whenever I'm in a pub we generally go in rounds, it's going to be carnage if each person in the pub has to buy their own drink

kt0157

The beer fingerprints is the first taste of what life will be like with the ID card scheme. It will be compusory to register at a Government centre, where the entire population will be fingerprinted, eye-scanned and entered into a huge database. Then the ID card will be required to get a drink. This will be extended to buying alcohol in the supermarket, and eventually food (David Blunkett let slip that the plan was illegal immigrants wouldn't be able to buy food and would therefore leave).

When you vote for Stalinists like Blunkett, why are you surprised you get a nasty little fascist state?

K.

rae

as usual over hyped and mis-represented by the press. it should be remembered also that some licensed premises in America and canada already have fingerprint scanners at point of entry to confirm and register identification and age. this is the point. should we have some recognised form of identification capture at point of entry or is this a step too far in the big brother world.
what i would say is i doubt anyone would be too upset, if having been violently attacked in a nightclub, the police made an immediate arrest due to i.d. info left at the door, where previously all we may have is grainy dark CCTV footage not worth anything. its a balance with civil liberties as is everything in todays world. it wasn't so long ago the idea of a national DNA database, with samples stored forever was abhorrent. i don't hear anyone moaning now when offenders are starting to be prosecuted using this very evidence from years ago for very serious crimes.

kt0157

Overconfidence in DNA is very dangerous. Already joyriders are taking cigarette butts from litter bins and leaving them in the cars they steal knowing that the police will run an analysis and finger innocent people instead. The Home Office consistently refuses to provide details of how many entries in its database match with different people (which would indicate just how fallable the technique is).

K.

rae

with respect, i think you have read too much PD James or Iain Rankin and not enough HMIC. in ten years as a police officer, at various points working with NCIS and CENTREX, the home office organisation in police training with regard to forensic recovery and examination, never have i found this to be so. of the hundreds of people i have personally arrested for these crimes, never have i found it to be so. of the hundreds of people i have arrested under statutory preventative measures legislation, never have i found this to be so.

kt0157

A lot of arrests there. How many were guilty?

K.

dbd33

1. Where is there such a device in the US or Canada?

2. How does it confirm identification and age? In the US access to police and government databases by the public is tightly restricted by law. That's not the case here, one's driving record, for example, is quite freely available but it doesn't include fingerprints.

Novocastrian

Oh for god's sake. Please use language as if it had some value.