The Home Office has confirmed to OUT-LAW that the ID Card Act
and the Serious and Organised Crime Act contain provisions for the
mobile devices to access the entire population database, which will
eventually carry fingerprint information for the whole
population.
"They could check a fingerprint scan against the ID card
register, but they have to have checked the police fingerprint
database first," said a Home Office spokesman. "Should the trial be
successful and implemented then the police will be able to do in
the field what they can now do in a police station."
The ID Card Act allows the database to be used for "purposes
connected with the prevention or detection of crime," while the
Serious Organised Crime Act allows police to carry out checks
outside the police station in the same manner in which they
currently can in a police station.
Dr Chris Pounder, an expert in privacy law at Pinsent Masons,
the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said that he agreed that the law
allowed for the extension of the system into the population
database. "I think the Home Office analysis is correct," he said.
"There is nothing stopping this in the ID card legislation."
Ten police forces in England and Wales are trialling the mobile
fingerprint machines, which send a scanned print to the national
database using mobile phone technology to be checked. The machines
are being used to identify drivers in conjunction with the
increasing number of number plate recognition cameras on the
roads.
In the pilot the machines can only be used with the permission
of the person involved, but should the scheme be activated
nationwide the Serious and Organised Crime Act would give officers
the same rights outside police stations as inside them.
If officers have reason to suspect a person of being involved in
a crime they can stop and search that person, and can take a
fingerprint from them. If the person refuses to identify themselves
or give a fingerprint a DNA sample can be taken from them by
force.
The Home Office spokesman said that a fingerprint could only be
checked against the whole population database if the person refused
to identify themselves or if the police had reason to believe they
were lying about their identity. It can also only be checked if the
police database is checked first.
The mobile machines can only be used as part of the stop and
search process, which means that in order to use them police must
have suspicion that a person has been involved in a crime.
