It might sound like something out of a spy movie but mobile fingerprint scanners are being issued to police officers across London under a new initiative designed to help identify and reprimand crooks in two minutes flat. Impressed, Mr Bond?
These specialised gadgets are being trialled in 15 boroughs city-wide including Camden and Islington. The thought process behind them is to quickly eliminate innocent people from enquiries whilst bringing up any matches with a criminal record.
The scanners however, have been met with mixed reviews; whilst being championed by Chief Superintendant Adrian Usher as a ‘time-saving device’ designed to streamline the course of justice, there are some who believe there use could be an infringement on people’s human rights.
Islington Borough Council worker, who did not want to give his name, believes the Mobile Fingerprint Scanners are an invasion of privacy: “[The use of the scanners] is open to abuse and infringes my rights. I think it’s a draconian measure…it’s too controlling…where does the information they collect go?”.
The search is detailed enough to inform officers if the potential perpetrator is registered as missing, wanted or even an illegal immigrant. What is less clear however, is what happens to the information collected by the scanners.
The devices, which are the size of a mobile phone, are connected to the National Fingerprint Database which holds over 8.1million identity records. These new gadgets are supposed to do more than just help fight crime though; it is hoped that they will be able to identify unconscious victims at the scene of the accident as well as identifying murder victims. However, if these victims have no criminal pasts then their fingerprints won’t be on the system, it seems they may only be good for catching serial bad guys.
The scanners are already being used by Territorial Support Groups as well as Traffic Police, and were trialled at the royal wedding and last year’s Notting Hill Carnival.
In a poll conducted by the Holloway Express, of 19 shoppers on Holloway Road, 15 of whom hadn’t heard about the introduction of Mobile Fingerprint Scanners, nine people thought they were a good idea and thought they would be effective in catching criminals. 10 thought that it was unfair or unethical for the police to be able to have such instant access to this information with one woman, who didn’t want to give her name saying: “Well people make mistakes in the past and pay for them, what if they have a criminal record, will they be arrested anyway?”
Finsbury Park Police Station has been issued with two scanners: “One is kept in a patrol car and the other is given to a one of the other officers”, according to local bobby PC Smith.
PC Smith has identified one potentially critical flaw of the scanners: “They have their limitations…they’re cumbersome to carry around, they are very expensive…and people have a legal right to refuse to be scanned…the ones who’ll refuse are the ones who would lie about their names and addresses anyway.”
It seems there could still be a long way to go before Mobile Fingerprint Scanners are widely accepted and seen as the ‘norm’. There are still questions to be answered. Society is trying protect its citizens, but maybe the spy work should be left to the professionals.
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