SHOP STAFF WILL TAKE CHARGE OF ID CARDS

STAFF in supermarkets, post offices and even photo shops will be asked to take fingerprints and facial scans for the new ID card, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said yesterday.


Card opponent Phil Booth, of No2ID, said: “It’s almost comical that the organ­isation in charge of national security thinks they can trust the local camera shop with your most private information.” continues here continues here

Civil liberties groups condemn 'Big Brother' plan to keep DNA of innocent people for 12 years

Innocent people will have to wait up to 12 years to have their DNA removed from the Government's 'Big Brother' database, under controversial new plans.

Even those cleared of the most minor offences will have to wait six years, while some innocent children will have their profiles stored long after they have turned 18.

The proposals, which require a change in the law, were last night slammed by civil liberties groups, who are threatening to sue the Home Office.

They accused Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of an ' undignified rearguard' action designed to do as little as possible to comply with a European Court of Human Rights' ruling that storing the DNA of innocents is unlawful.

UNDER THE NEW PLAN:
Profiles of adults and children arrested, but not convicted of serious crimes, will be kept for 12 years;
Profiles of those arrested but not convicted of minor offences stored for six years;
Youngsters convicted of only one minor offence will be deleted from the database when they turn 18;
Children convicted of serious crime to have their profile stored indefinitely.

There will also be a 'two strikes and you're out policy', whereby children accused twice of a minor offence must remain on the database for at least six years - even if they are cleared both times.

Campaigners had hoped that the samples of all 850,000 innocents stored on the database - the largest in the world - would be destroyed in the wake of last December's judgment.

Home Office officials admit what is being proposed may not even be acceptable to the European courts, but insist to go further would weaken the fight against crime. And they claim 4,500 more crimes will be solved each year. Currently, under laws introduced by Tony Blair, anyone accused but not convicted can have their profile stored for life.

The process of removing innocents already on the database will take two years. Officials estimate that, at most, only 500,000 samples will be removed.

The proposals remain far tougher than in Scotland, where DNA is kept for a maximum of five years, even for those accused of the most serious crimes.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: 'People in Britain should be innocent until proven guilty.

'Ministers are just trying to get away with as little as they possibly can instead of taking real action to remove innocent people from the DNA database. It's just not good enough.'

Tory police spokesman James Brokenshire uncovered figures showing that - despite the huge growth in profiles on the database from 2.1million in 2002 to 5.6million today - the number of detected crimes in which a DNA match was available has fallen, from 21,098 to 17,614 last year.

Civil liberties groups have threatened legal action over the plans, which they said would leave Britain 'massively out of step with the rest of the world'.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: 'With regret we shall be forced to see her (Miss Smith) in court once more.'

Police will also track down around 30,000 criminals who committed serious crimes before the database was built so their profiles can be added. All genetic material taken will be destroyed - at a cost of almost £60million. continues here

Identity cards 'useless in fight against terrorism'

Mass fingerprinting, biometric passports, identity cards and international identity databases will not protect Britain and other European countries from terrorists or criminals.

This startling admission comes in a leaked European Commission report prepared for Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and other EU Home Affairs Ministers.

The report undermines Gordon Brown's claims about the need for controversial new passports and identity cards to protect the country from terror attacks.

It raises new questions about the true purpose of Government databases, which will store intimate details of everyone in Britain, including their picture, fingerprints and confidential personal information.

The EU report, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, says most people behind terror attacks in the UK and Europe were living in the EU legally and so would not be affected by increased security measures.......Article conts (-)