UK Considers Child Fingerprinting Scheme

by Jordan Yerman | March 5, 2007 at 11:03 am

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This is just getting silly. Between the video cameras in city streets and biometric passports and impending National ID Cards, you would think that the British Government could just kick back and revel in the surveillance state that it has created. You would be wrong, though, as children have been left out of the equation. Until now, evidently. The (presumed) innocence of youth may well be a thing of the past.

Proposals to fingerprint children aged 11 to 15 as part of new passport and ID card plans are being considered.

Immigration minister Liam Byrne told ITV1's The Sunday Edition the proposals were being "looked at".

Under existing plans every passport applicant over 16 will have details - including fingerprints - added to a National Identity register from 2008.

But there was concern youngsters could use passports without biometric details up to the age of 20, said Mr Byrne.

This could happen if they are issued a child passport between the ages of 11 and 15, which would be valid for five years.

Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties called the idea "sinister".

This proposal disturbs me because, much like Bush's America, the UK enjoys no public oversight of government action, as they have no Bill of Rights or its equivalent: the public has the rights that the state says that the public has, and that can change at any time. When I first lived in England, such a situation was disturbing, but mainly in a theoretical way. Now, with the bugbear of terrorism, many citizens are all too willing to give up their rights to the state in the hopes that they will be looked after.

I thought that V FOR VENDETTA was a work of fiction.