Your Fingerprints Taken At Roadside

Living It
Posted: Nov 22, 2006


Drivers pulled over by police are to have their fingerprints scanned by the side of the road.

A pilot scheme for a new hand-held electronic fingerprint reader is to be launched in Luton, Bedfordshire, by officers targeting motoring offences.

Police hope the Lantern device will save time and money by allowing them to identify suspects on the roadside without having to take them to the station.

It lets officers search a national database of 6.5m fingerprints and get a result within five minutes.

The Home Office's Police Information Technology Organisation (Pito) calculates it could save more than £2m a year.

Fingerprints can only be taken from the public voluntarily using the system because the law prevents officers from forcing people to give prints on the street.

Police Minister Tony McNulty said: "This trial represents an important step forward in our commitment to ensuring we have an effective and efficient police service fully equipped for the challenges of modern policing.

"The new technology will speed up the time it takes for police to identify individuals at the roadside, enabling them to spend more time on the frontline and reducing any inconvenience for innocent members of the public."

Other forces taking part in the pilot are British Transport Police, Essex, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Metropolitan Police, North Wales, Northamptonshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire.