British police have plans to implement a new law enforcement program-- if an officer runs into someone on the street that he suspects has committed a crime, the officer will have the authority to take a fingerprint sample on the spot and check it against existing government databases.
Within 18 months, every police force in the UK is to be equipped with the mobile fingerprint scanners - handheld devices that will allow police to carry out identity checks on ordinary citizens.
To address fears about mass surveillance and random searches, the police insist fingerprints taken by the scanners will not be stored or added to databases. Instead, the law requires that the fingerprints be deleted after each use. Mmmm . . . we shall see . . .
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