http://www.engadget.com/…

Surely your remember Project Lantern from back in 2006, right? If you weren’t too fond of that initiative, let’s just say your worst nightmare is coming true. Going forward, every police force in the UK will be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners, which will allow the fuzz to carry out identity checks right on the street. Dubbed Project Midas, this here setup is supposed to “transform the speed of criminal investigations”while simultaneously freaking out anyone remotely concerned about personal privacy; in fairness, cops insist that fingerprints scanned via these portable devices will not be stored or added to databases, and we’re told that they’ll only be used ” when they suspect an individual of an offense and can’t establish his / her identity.” The £30 million ($47.5 million) to £40 million ($63.4 million) initial phase should hit widespread deployment within 18 months, and in case you thought it was over after this, you should probably know that facial recognition in the field is the next top priority.

As soon as this comes to the United States I suppose just leaving my ID at home won’t be enough. I’ll have to start removing my fingerprints?

I wonder how it communicates with the main database. If they can query it they can update it. Now with the bandwidth available in mobile devices it’s definitely possible now to store each scan centrally. It’s far too easy and tempting to turn every match query into a store. Perhaps we need to all start wearing personal jammers.

They claim it’s only for when identity can not be established. Why so strict? Are that many people without ID or those with won’t hand it over? I very much doubt it. And if nothing is being stored why not use it all the time. Shouldn’t that be more secure then plastic IDs? Incompetence or deception. Both unacceptable.

Not only did they pass a bailout of Fannie and Freddie but they raised the debt limit. Let the good times roll!

Oh and don’t forget fingerprinting morgage brokers and credit card transactions reported to the IRS.