Intranetics Motoring News Service

Speeding motorists set for roadside criminal checks

22nd November 2006 | BACK     PRINT

Speeding motorists could soon be fingerprinted at the side of the road.

Police forces across England will today begin trials of a new system designed to verify the identity of drivers pulled over for minor motoring offences, such as speeding.

Managed by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO), Project Lantern claims to radically reduce the time it takes to identify suspects, touting potential savings of £2.2 million a year.

Police in Bedfordshire are the first to pilot the system, which will allow traffic officers to run drivers' fingerprints through a hand-held fingerprint reader, verifying their identity and cross-referencing it against 6.5 million recorded fingerprints of crime suspects.

"The new technology will speed up the time it takes for police to identify individuals at the roadside, enabling them to spend more time on the front line and reducing any inconvenience for innocent members of the public," said police minister Tony McNulty.

He added: "This trial represents an important step forward in our commitment to ensuring we have an effective and efficient police service fully equipped for the challenges of modern policing."

Initially, drivers will be asked to volunteer their fingerprints. However, indications are that participation could become mandatory. The PITO states that the trials will work on a voluntary basis because the legislation needed to demand cooperation has not yet been enacted.

However, the Home Office states that it will enact the legislation if the trials prove successful; meaning speeding motorists could be forced to submit to fingerprinting on the roadside.

Responses to the initiative have been mixed, with civil liberties groups raising concerns and police officers welcoming the potential time savings.

NO2ID, which campaigns against ID cards, claimed that Project Lantern amounts to public abuse. A spokesman argued that on-the-spot fingerprinting is "another attempt by Whitehall" to gain the public's information and alleged that the information will be permanently stored on a database.

However, Inspector Steve Rawlings, who will be among the first to use the system in Luton, claimed that it takes just two sets of fingerprints, which are not retained.

Explaining the benefits, he told the BBC: "The encounter can be 15 minutes on the roadside rather than three hours in the police station."

Asked about the potential implications for road safety, Luke Bosdet from the AA Motoring Trust said that any scheme to remove offending motorists from the roads could be beneficial.

He explained that at present police are only able to verify the identity of the car, not the driver, adding that drivers without insurance or proper registration details are more likely to be involved in other criminal activities such as speeding, avoiding the congestion charge or stealing petrol, as they know they are difficult to trace.

The PITO claims that 60 per cent of drivers pulled over attempt to give a false identity. At present, police can only verify a suspect's identity by arresting them and taking them to a police station, a time-consuming and extreme practice which Project Lantern aims to reduce.

Over the next two months, trials will also begin in Essex, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, London, north Wales, Northamptonshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire.

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