European Ministers Hope to Start Digital Fingerprinting in Five Countries in 2006

In a bid to improve security, ministers from five European countries said Monday they hoped to start digital fingerprinting for passports in 2006, but they split over a German proposal to put illegal migrants in transit camps in North Africa. Interior ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy held two days of informal talks in a 19th-century villa in Florence to prepare initiatives they hope will eventually be adopted throughout the 25-member European Union. But they failed to overcome their own differences over Germany's proposal, backed by Italy, to set up camps in North Africa to process asylum seekers before they set out on perilous sea journeys to southern European shores. In a statement at the end of the talks Monday morning, the ministers said they were hoping to introduce the fingerprint measure for passports issued in their countries starting in 2006. Conservative Italian politicians hailed the fingerprinting measure as aiding the fight against terrorism and immigrant smuggling.

Although Spain, like Italy, is flooded with immigrants making clandestine voyages across the Mediterranean from North Africa, it sided with France against the German idea.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=176533


From:
Aftermath News
Top Stories - October 21st, 2004

'Some know more about the deal they're making than others' Exaggeration, fears, gradual acceptance, trust and deal-making were identified as among the dynamics of a relationship between sacrifice of privacy and gaining technologically-assisted benefits, at an energetic panel session at last week’s biometrics conference in Wellington. Discussion ranged beyond biometrics to citizens’ confidence in “joined-up government” and the shock of finding an Indian helpdesk apparently in possession of personal information entrusted to a US company's Australian branch. A rational person might find it very difficult to be opposed to the alleged privacy invasion of a biometric “when we’ve already accepted that we’re safer with CCTV cameras in our streets,” says privacy lawyer John Edwards. On the other hand, a significant number of citizens had raised objections to their driver’s licence photographs being digitised. “At the heart of it is the deal,” says Australian code of practice coordinator Terry Aulich. It’s a matter of the privacy citizens are prepared to give up, including their perception of the possibility of subsequent abuse, in return for increased convenience in the transaction or some other kind of “reward”. “Some people are more knowledgeable about the ‘deal’ they’re making than others will be,” he said. In an earlier era, “joined-up government”, where one government agency exchanges a citizen’s personal information with another, “was seen as a bogeyman. Now [many citizens] see it as a sensible way of easing their burden of compliance with the law.” In practice, “Big Brother” activity is more likely to come from private industry than government, says Aulich; public trust in government to do the right thing is still high, “though it’s dropped back a bit recently.”

Government and the media are two of the few groups exempted from the provisions of Australia’s Privacy Act, he notes.of easing their burden of compliance with the law.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q2B645299


From:
Aftermath News
Top Stories - October 21st, 2004

Biometrics, the science of using measurable physical characteristics to identify people, has added new weapons to the arsenals of law enforcement agencies, and as some of these new tools are connected to high-speed wireless communications they could become widely available to officers in the field, not just those back at headquarters. Hand-held devices that can be used to digitally scan fingerprints and match the results against large databases are being tested by several law enforcement agencies nationwide, with officials at some saying that the benefits of biometrics are already clear. The companies behind the products see uses that extend beyond local law enforcement activities, into such areas as homeland security and border control. They say the tools also have potential in the private sector, in banking and employee identification, for example, and that foreign governments have begun ordering them as well.

The Portland, Ore., police department has been testing a mobile fingerprint identification device since April. The unit, called IBIS and made by a Minnetonka, Minn., company called Identix, is slightly larger than an ordinary hand-held computer. It can scan fingerprints and then compare them with records kept by members of the Western Identification Network, a consortium of law enforcement agencies in Western states with a database of more than 3.5 million fingerprint records.

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040923.gtprintsep23/BNStory/Technology/


From:
Aftermath News
Top Stories - October 21st, 2004