[jambutty]

Thanks for the sympathy bit firefighter753 but I got over the crimes over time.

It may well be the case today that the fingerprint is not retained but once the system is in place it would only need a new law to change this and this government, during the current Parliament, has brought in over 3,000 pieces of new legislation. It is only a matter of time before a future government passes the necessary legislation for all fingerprints to be retained on the police database. It would be next to impossible to establish that the fingerprint has not been retained.

If a police officer stops someone in the street or in a vehicle at the moment and the person gives false details, the person is arrested, taken back to the police station and his details are checked.

How does the police officer know that any details given on the street by a stranger are false?

If I got stopped on the street, was asked my name and replied Penelope Dawson the cop would rightly be suspicious because as a general rule blokes do not have girls’ names. But if I answered Henry Marsden he would have to accept it. So what use would a fingerprint check be?

All this fingerprinting stuff is just an excuse to go fishing for evidence without suspicion of a specific crime being committed. It is tantamount to fingerprinting a whole neighbourhood to try and find any known criminals and that is an invasion of civil liberties.

Look what happens today – the police arrest someone on suspicion of committing a crime, (that means they have no real evidence that would stand up in court) impound the person’s personal belonging like computers and documents and then spend time searching them for evidence to convict them with. They do that with suspected terrorists and then spend the next 28 days searching for evidence and now the government is seeking 90 days detention.

Only a very naïve burglar will leave a fingerprint when burgling a house. In all seven burglaries in my house there were no fingerprints apart from mine and legitimate visitors. In fact on most occasions they didn’t even bother dusting around for prints because SOCO knew that there wouldn’t be any.

The machines may be heavy and unwieldy today but once upon a time a simple basic mobile phone was like a house brick and look at them now. It’s called progress!

There was a time when the police could only arrest someone if there was evidence of a crime being committed, although they could detain someone for questioning on suspicion alone. Today you can be arrested on just suspicion and that was the thin end of the wedge.