Britain’s passport database could be used to catch shoplifters, burglars and other criminals under urgent plans to curb crime, the policing minister has said.
Chris Philp said he planned to integrate data from the police national database (PND), the Passport Office and other national databases to help police find a match with the “click of one button”.
But civil liberty campaigners have warned the plans would be an “Orwellian nightmare” that amount to a “gross violation of British privacy principles”.
Foreign nationals who are not on the passport database could also be found via the immigration and asylum biometrics system, which will be part of an amalgamated system to help catch thieves.
[…]
Until the new platform is created, he said police forces should search each database separately.
[…]
Emmanuelle Andrews, policy and campaigns manager at the campaign group, said: “Time and time again the government has relied on the social issue of the day to push through increasingly authoritarian measures. And that’s just what we’re seeing here with these extremely worrying proposals to encourage the police to scan our faces as we go to buy a pint of milk and trawl through our personal information.
“By enabling the police to use private dashcam footage, as well as the immigration and asylum system, and passport database, the government are turning our neighbours, loved ones, and public service officials into border guards and watchmen.
[…]
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “Philp’s plan to subvert Brits’ passport photos into a giant police database is Orwellian and a gross violation of British privacy principles. It means that over 45 million of us with passports who gave our images for travel purposes will, without any kind of consent or the ability to object, be part of secret police lineups.
“To scan the population’s photos with highly inaccurate facial recognition technology and treat us like suspects is an outrageous assault on our privacy that totally overlooks the real reasons for shoplifting. Philp should concentrate on fixing broken policing rather than building an automated surveillance state.
“We will look at every possible avenue to challenge this Orwellian nightmare.”
Source: UK passport images database could be used to catch shoplifters | Police | The Guardian
Also, time and again we have seen that centralised databases are a really really bad idea – the data gets stolen and misused by the operators.
Robin Edgar
Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft