Every airport traveller 'will be fingerprinted'
Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:07 pm (PST)
Every airport traveller 'will be fingerprinted'
GERRI PEEV POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
* Airport biometric procedures to be extended after alleged terror
plot
* Six out of ten believe government is not exaggerating terrorism
threat
* Reid reaction to terror has seen his public profile soar as
Blair's successor
Key quote
"As we face the threat of mass murder we have to accept that the
rights of the individual that we enjoy must, and will be, balanced
with the collective right of security and the protection of life and
limb that our citizens demand." - JOHN REID, THE HOME SECRETARY
Story in full BIOMETRIC testing is set to be introduced at European
airports under plans for stringent new security measures revealed
yesterday in the wake of last week's alleged terror plot.
Advert for The Scotsman Digital Archive
Passengers would have their fingerprint or iris scanned under the
measures proposed by EU interior ministers, which would also use
passenger profiling to try to identify potential terrorists.
The move to beef up relaxed security procedures in Europe came as John
Reid, the Home Secretary, warned that human rights would have to be
balanced against the threat from terrorism and that the current terror
threat was Europe-wide and needed to be tackled on an international level.
The EU minister in charge of justice, Franco Frattini, said ministers
were looking at the "positive profiling" of passengers, carried out
well in advance of their flights, based on "biometric identifiers"
such as iris scans or fingerprints.
However, both he and Mr Reid stressed that there were no plans for
profiling based on passengers' ethnic origins. Rather, the profiling
would be drawn from biometric information.
This would actually speed up airport security procedures, he argued.
But the scheme could also pave the way for an EU-wide database,
provoking outrage from privacy rights campaigners last night.
The plan to extend biometric procedures - already enforced in the
United States, Canada and Australia - to European airports was
revealed after an informal meeting of EU interior ministers in London
yesterday.
Other measures agreed include a commitment to stamping out radicalism
by stricter policing of the internet, replacing extremism with a
"European" model of Islam, a 250 million research project into liquid
explosives and a meeting of security services across Europe this month.
The details emerged after ministers from the current Finnish EU
presidency, as well as future EU presidencies Germany, France,
Portugal and Slovenia, were briefed along with Mr Reid and Mr Frattini
yesterday by Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the MI5 director general,
and Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, the head of special operations
at Scotland Yard.
Responding to the plans, Phil Booth, the national co-ordinator of
NO2ID, a UK campaign group which lobbies against a centralised
biometrics database, said the biometric scheme could not work unless
Europe had the fingerprint of every international terrorist on record.
"If [interior ministers] do not have that, then what they are
proposing is the construction of the largest haystack of all time to
find a few needles," he said.
"This magical thinking about biometrics identifying terrorists is
plainly crazy. What is more worrying is that John Reid is
grandstanding and using an alleged incident to conflate our security
and our freedom."
Mr Booth added that biometrics could also be used for de facto racial
profiling of passengers: "Because it is a measure of the body,
biometrics will often identify people's ethnic origin."
Other proposals revealed by Mr Frattini included the training of imams
at EU level after concerns that extremists were taking over mosques,
while radicalisation across schools and prisons would also come under
closer scrutiny.
"We do want a European Islam and that is very important not only to
show to the Muslim communities that we fully respect other religions
... but we also want [them to] respect national laws, European laws
and fundamental rights - first of all the right to life," he said.
The bloc will look into a suggestion by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French
interior minister, to set up counter-terrorism expert teams at EU
level ready to help countries if needed, he said.
Meanwhile, a separate 250 million fund was announced to help to
research and detect liquid explosives.
Mr Frattini said that he would make proposals in coming days on the
detection of explosives.
Yesterday, Mr Reid said Europe would not allow terrorists to undermine
the "common European values that bind our societies together".
The proponents of terror "would abuse our open societies, would misuse
our freedoms and adapt the latest technology to their evil intent and
have no regard for human life or for human rights".
"As we face the threat of mass murder, we have to accept that the
rights of the individual that we enjoy must, and will be, balanced
with the collective right of security and the protection of life and
limb that our citizens demand," he added.
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll out today reveals that more than half of
people in the UK questioned wanted a "more aggressive" foreign policy.
And 55 per cent supported passenger profiling at airports.
Related topics
* Terrorism in the UK
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=758
* Identity cards
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=428
* Tony Blair's leadership
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=926
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1202152006
Every airport traveller 'will be fingerprinted'
GERRI PEEV POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
* Airport biometric procedures to be extended after alleged terror
plot
* Six out of ten believe government is not exaggerating terrorism
threat
* Reid reaction to terror has seen his public profile soar as
Blair's successor
Key quote
"As we face the threat of mass murder we have to accept that the
rights of the individual that we enjoy must, and will be, balanced
with the collective right of security and the protection of life and
limb that our citizens demand." - JOHN REID, THE HOME SECRETARY
Story in full BIOMETRIC testing is set to be introduced at European
airports under plans for stringent new security measures revealed
yesterday in the wake of last week's alleged terror plot.
Advert for The Scotsman Digital Archive
Passengers would have their fingerprint or iris scanned under the
measures proposed by EU interior ministers, which would also use
passenger profiling to try to identify potential terrorists.
The move to beef up relaxed security procedures in Europe came as John
Reid, the Home Secretary, warned that human rights would have to be
balanced against the threat from terrorism and that the current terror
threat was Europe-wide and needed to be tackled on an international level.
The EU minister in charge of justice, Franco Frattini, said ministers
were looking at the "positive profiling" of passengers, carried out
well in advance of their flights, based on "biometric identifiers"
such as iris scans or fingerprints.
However, both he and Mr Reid stressed that there were no plans for
profiling based on passengers' ethnic origins. Rather, the profiling
would be drawn from biometric information.
This would actually speed up airport security procedures, he argued.
But the scheme could also pave the way for an EU-wide database,
provoking outrage from privacy rights campaigners last night.
The plan to extend biometric procedures - already enforced in the
United States, Canada and Australia - to European airports was
revealed after an informal meeting of EU interior ministers in London
yesterday.
Other measures agreed include a commitment to stamping out radicalism
by stricter policing of the internet, replacing extremism with a
"European" model of Islam, a 250 million research project into liquid
explosives and a meeting of security services across Europe this month.
The details emerged after ministers from the current Finnish EU
presidency, as well as future EU presidencies Germany, France,
Portugal and Slovenia, were briefed along with Mr Reid and Mr Frattini
yesterday by Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the MI5 director general,
and Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, the head of special operations
at Scotland Yard.
Responding to the plans, Phil Booth, the national co-ordinator of
NO2ID, a UK campaign group which lobbies against a centralised
biometrics database, said the biometric scheme could not work unless
Europe had the fingerprint of every international terrorist on record.
"If [interior ministers] do not have that, then what they are
proposing is the construction of the largest haystack of all time to
find a few needles," he said.
"This magical thinking about biometrics identifying terrorists is
plainly crazy. What is more worrying is that John Reid is
grandstanding and using an alleged incident to conflate our security
and our freedom."
Mr Booth added that biometrics could also be used for de facto racial
profiling of passengers: "Because it is a measure of the body,
biometrics will often identify people's ethnic origin."
Other proposals revealed by Mr Frattini included the training of imams
at EU level after concerns that extremists were taking over mosques,
while radicalisation across schools and prisons would also come under
closer scrutiny.
"We do want a European Islam and that is very important not only to
show to the Muslim communities that we fully respect other religions
... but we also want [them to] respect national laws, European laws
and fundamental rights - first of all the right to life," he said.
The bloc will look into a suggestion by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French
interior minister, to set up counter-terrorism expert teams at EU
level ready to help countries if needed, he said.
Meanwhile, a separate 250 million fund was announced to help to
research and detect liquid explosives.
Mr Frattini said that he would make proposals in coming days on the
detection of explosives.
Yesterday, Mr Reid said Europe would not allow terrorists to undermine
the "common European values that bind our societies together".
The proponents of terror "would abuse our open societies, would misuse
our freedoms and adapt the latest technology to their evil intent and
have no regard for human life or for human rights".
"As we face the threat of mass murder, we have to accept that the
rights of the individual that we enjoy must, and will be, balanced
with the collective right of security and the protection of life and
limb that our citizens demand," he added.
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll out today reveals that more than half of
people in the UK questioned wanted a "more aggressive" foreign policy.
And 55 per cent supported passenger profiling at airports.
Related topics
* Terrorism in the UK
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=758
* Identity cards
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=428
* Tony Blair's leadership
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=926
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1202152006
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