Identity Cards Bill

I welcome this group of amendments as it enables us to discuss the ins and outs of fingerprinting and fingerprint data and, indeed, what the Government intend to include under the auspices of ““other biometric information””. I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 90A and 111. The question of why the UK is going for such an elaborate biometric database deserves the deepest probing during the course of the Bill. Air travel regulations do not require nation states to collect 13 biometric details, as is often loosely stated by supporters of the national identity register. Indeed, those regulations have specifically recognised that many nation states do not want to emulate the British requirement and, in some cases, would not be permitted to do so. German privacy laws, for example, forbid the creation of a national biometric database, and for that reason their biometric system has been set up to exclude the kind of audit trail that the Government here want to impose on us. The German system includes two index fingerprints. There was strong resistance to the idea in Germany. Indeed, it was reported in the Financial Times that there was a stampede by German citizens to secure old-style passports before the new ones came in because of opposition to national registration. I have to say that the German authorities were more open and honest than ours. Here, the public have still not been told what is proposed for passport registration from the end of next year. I have yet to meet any person not involved in this debate who is aware that to have the right to leave our country a UK citizen without a passport or whose passport has lapsed will have to go to an interrogation centre, be questioned and fingerprinted, secretly registered and given a number—and, of course, pay for that privilege. The Government do not like it when the London School of Economics report is mentioned, but perhaps the Minister should go away and read it again. She will find a devastating accumulation of evidence showing that the UK fingerprint requirement goes beyond what is being sought or permitted in most other countries. The only reason for such an elaborate database can be for the internal control of United Kingdom citizens. It is also argued that EU regulations would require the taking and storing of these biometric details. It used to be said that that was necessary to comply with US standards. That is not true. The US immigration authorities do not require full palm prints or prints of all 10 digits; nor are they planning that. Once again, over-specification can be construed only as part of a UK or EU project to compile databases on UK and EU citizens. The United States is upgrading its immigration facilities following the Patriot Act, but if you go to a state-of-the-art facility, such as the giant facility at Houston Airport, which opened recently, you will find that visitors are photographed. They are even asked for a fingerprint, but only of the index finger of each hand. There is no question of trying to take a print of every finger, as the Government wish. After long flights, most people suffer substantial dehydration, and it is difficult for the readers to take a print in such circumstances. Wet pads are available for visitors to moisten their fingers, but they sometimes have to repeat three or four times the attempt to read each print. Imagine that being replicated 10 times over. Imagine the unnecessary delays. Imagine the extra costs involved in developing the technology to store and check the prints. Image the extra complexity and cost of the readers that would be required by police, immigration authorities, doctors, hospitals, social security offices and all those that the Government want to embrace within the system. The whole thing is potentially an elaborate folly and a disaster in the making that is not justified by any international standard or requirement by other nations. It is simply a luxury tool for our Government. I hope, therefore, that if the Government persist with this scheme they will accept this limiting amendment and curb their ambitions—and so curb costs. If they do not do so, the Committee will need a very good explanation by the noble Baroness as to why the UK is gold-plating in this way and a clear statement of the costs involved.