Immediate – Friday 5th March 2010

The National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) has announced that “Police officers across the country will soon be able to check an individual’s identity at the roadside.” [1] The announcement does not offer any relevant facts about the system being used, other than it saves officers half an hour compared with identifying a person by other means. But most people are not on police records and cannot be correctly identified this way. Unless you are reasonably suspected of an offence you cannot in any case be compelled to prove your identity to police.

Privacy group NO2ID [2] condemns the way the release uses one anecdote about the capture of a fugitive rapist to justify a significant change in the relationship between police and public. Instead of spinning emotive cases the NPIA should answer the following factual questions about the trial:

1. The fingerprints themselves are not retained, but what is done with other information about the stop? Is the fact of an individual being checked this way retained on any database?
2. What false match rates have been recorded in practice? [3]
3. What multiple match rates have been recorded in practice?
4. How many people were fingerprinted?
5. In how many cases did this lead to no further action?
6. How many people refused to ‘volunteer’?
7. How many people were arrested after having refused the ‘voluntary’ fingerprinting?
8. In how many cases did this lead to no further action?
9. How did rates of arrest and fingerprinting compare with those of equivalent stops not using the machine?

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID said:

Saving police time is undoubtedly a good thing; but fingerprinting of people before arrest is generally a bad thing. This system makes that much more likely. Just how ‘voluntary’ is it going to be in practice?

The official assumption that checking people against a database at every opportunity is useful, means anyone who objects to the violation of their privacy and anyone marked by it as ‘known to police’ will be treated as a criminal. As they propose to use it, this machine is a suspicion generator.’

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:
1) NPIA press release March 4 2010. Reported in, e.g.
Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255623/Police-forces-equipped-mobile-scanners-enable-identity-checks-street.html
The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-to-be-equipped-with-mobile-fingerprint-scanners-1916123.html

2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.

3) Any automatic biometric matching processes are statistical in nature. Matching a known individual to their own fingerprint ‘1 to 1′ matching, is fairly reliable, if not perfect, and can produce false negatives, where the system finds no match where there is one. Matching a random individual to a named fingerprint out of a large number, ‘1 to N’ matching, is a much more difficult problem, even if the individual is guaranteed to be among those in the database. It can produce both false negatives, and, more worryingly for this case, false positives, where the system declares the person fingerprinted close enough to be a match for one or more of the database when they are not.

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166

Embargoed until 00:01 Monday 25th January 2010

The Home Office today announces that young people in London may enroll in its National Identity Scheme from February 8th, suggesting that it offers a ‘convenient’ form of proof of age. NO2ID [1] suggests that targetting London’s young is even less likely to achieve wide use than the heavily promoted pilot in Manchester [2].

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID said:

If it were not for the sinister consequences for anyone foolish
enough to be a guinea pig, this would be ludicrous as well as
wasteful.

You can spend £10 on a proof-of-age card from an independent charity with no other commitment; or you can pay £30 now, be fingerprinted, and agree to account for your personal details to the Home Office for the rest of your life. The government believes you will choose the second, and is spending £230,000 of taxpayers money a day [3] on that basis.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

[1] NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and
the database state.
See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and
http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.
NO2ID’s ‘Don’t be a guinea-pig’ campaign is at: http://www.no2id.net/idcardcon/

[2] See, ‘Hundreds of ID cards taken up in NW England,’ BBC 21 Jan 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8472030.stm
The Home Office claims that, ‘A total of 2,700 identity cards are now
in circulation in Manchester and the North West.’ In Greater Manchester alone there are more than 3,000 births a month.

[3] See, ‘ID cards to go on sale for the first time in Manchester,’ The Times 17 Nov 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6919333.ece

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on
07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308 (Central London)
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166

Immediate: 12th January 2010

Yesterday, on the same day that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that stop and search powers under the Terrorism Act are too wide[1], it emerged that City of London police are claiming they may demand identification from photographers – powers that no legislation gives them.

In a statement given to Amateur Photographer [2], City of London Police said: ‘Photographers should carry identification where
possible and be prepared to answer questions about why they are taking photographs, if they are asked.’

Even under the controversial – from today arguably illegal – ’stop and account’ powers in the Terrorism Act 2000, police have no power arbitrarily to demand you identify yourself, let alone produce documents on the spot. They can only do so in connection with the investigation of a suspected offence.[3]

Phil Booth, NO2ID’s National Coordinator[4], said:

Even the Terrorism Act does not give police power to demand identification arbitrarily. In backing this ‘advice to photographers’ by vague menaces, the City force is trying to make it compulsory to carry ID in the square mile. Anyone with a mobile is a photographer nowadays.

It is not a free country where police make up powers to suit themselves. If what you are doing is lawful, then your identity is no business of the police.

This is a perfect illustration of the danger of the government’s ID scheme. They’ll say they ‘need to know’. They don’t. Official ID obsession means harassment for citizens – legally or illegally.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1. Gillan and Quinton v the United Kingdom:
   ‘…the powers of authorisation and confirmation as well as those of stop and search… are neither sufficiently circumscribed nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse. … .They are not therefore ‘in accordance with the law’.’
   See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6975087/Stop-and-search-under-terror-laws-unlawful-Europe-rules.html; Liberty conducted the case
2. Amateur Photographer, 12 January 2010 http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/Police_Photographers_should_carry_identification_news_292902.html
3. Taking photographs is rarely an offence.‘Officers should be reminded that it is not an offence for a member of the public or journalist to take photographs of a public building and use of cameras by the public does not ordinarily permit use of stop and search power,’Chief Constable Andrew Trotter has written, setting out ACPO’s opinion.
4. NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:

• Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
• Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308 (Central London)
• Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166