In Through The Out, er, Back Door

Looks like they're bringing this in through the back door. New passport
applicants will have their fingerprints taken, as will people renewing
them. Police will carry out checks of fingerprints found at scenes of
crimes against this database of the fingerprints of everyone with a
passport.

If you need to renew your passport or get a new one, you might want to do
it now before this comes in next year. You can fully expect coop between
national databases.

No debate in Parliament because passports are issued under royal
prerogative. Don't you love living in a democracy?

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homea...457298,00.html

Passport applicants must give fingerprints

Preparation for ID cards goes ahead without parliament

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian

Ministers are to press ahead with the mandatory fingerprinting of new
passport applicants using royal prerogative powers to sidestep the loss of
their identity card legislation last week.

The police are expected to be given the authority to carry out checks
against this newly created national fingerprint database.

The home secretary Charles Clarke has authorised the passport service to
acquire 70 new passport service offices across the country so that all
adult applicants for new documents can be interviewed in person from next
year. The service currently has seven offices.

The Home Office admits that the new network could also be used in future
as identity card enrolment centres and the introduction of mandatory
fingerprinting of passport applicants will form an important "building
block" for the future ID card scheme.

Ministers have already made clear that the police will be allowed to
conduct routine checks of fingerprints found at the scene of a crime
against this new fingerprint database.

Civil liberty campaigners fear that, with 80% of British citizens holding
a passport, the new fingerprint database will open up the potential of
routine identity checks using fingerprint scanners, whether or not the
individual is carrying a passport at the time.

It had been expected that the government's failure to get legislation
paving the way for a national identity card scheme onto the statute book
before the general election would at least have delayed the project.

But ministers have confirmed in correspondence that they are to press
ahead despite the lack of parliamentary authority because passports are
issued under the royal prerogative rather than legislation.

By the end of this year all new passports issued to first time adult
applicants and those whose passports have been lost or stolen will include
a chip containing a digital image of the normal passport photo. This will
not involve applicants going in person to a passport office.

But from next year the 600,000 a year new adult applicants will no longer
be able to apply by post and will have to present themselves for a
personal interview at the new passport offices where they will also be
fingerprinted.

Confirmation that this will be quickly extended to the 5 million people
renewing their passports every year is contained in the HM passport
service's corporate and business plan for 2005- 2010.

It shows that the new national fingerprint database will build up at a
rapid rate. A 415m funding boost to the passport service to introduce
these new "biometric passports" has already been agreed with the Treasury.

The Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, Mark Oaten, said the
government was trying to hide the true costs of its identity card scheme
by turning the passport into a biometric identity card.

"The compulsory identity cards scheme is an expensive white elephant and a
serious threat to civil liberties. It is an abuse of democracy for Labour
to use the royal prerogative to put the nuts and bolts of the system in
place without parliamentary approval," said Mr Oaten.

"There are no international obligations on the UK to put fingerprints in
passports. The idea raises important privacy questions which must be
properly debated, both in public and in Parliament."

Tony Bunyan of Statewatch, the civil liberties organisation, said the
International Civil Avi ation Organisation had told everyone to include a
digitised photograph on every passport.

But he said the recent agreement amongst the European Union Schengen
states to include fingerprints as well did not include an obligation on
the United Kingdom which retained its "opt-out" over such arrangements.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher, policy officer of Liberty, said: "If the government
cannot convince parliament or the public of the need for a multi-purpose
ID card it is wrong to create a national biometric database by stealth
without proper debate."