A grand for the Prime Minister's fingerprints

The Chaos Computer Club's (CCC) publication of the fingerprints of German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble along with a film showing methods of copying and reproducing fingerprint has now been taken up by British civil rights groups. No2ID and Privacy International are offering £1000 for the fingerprints of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Both organisations have posted old style 'Wanted' posters on their websites, on which they accuse the two of conspiracy and identity theft. Following on from the "great work" of the CCC, the aim is to draw the attention of politicians in the United Kingdom to the dubious nature of biometric data collection and to the intention to "undermine the right to own and control our biometrics".

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The fingerprints must be obtained legally, such as by collection from a door handle, beer glass or some other object with a hard surface. The money will not be paid to the bounty hunter, but to a charity nominated by them.

The government has been criticised for wanting to record all ten fingerprints of all citizens and save them in a central database. Critics label this as treating all British citizens as criminals, since the police will be able to search the database for forensic purposes. The civil rights organisations also point to recent cases of personal data being lost by government organisations. The spread of fingerprint systems for securing computers, possessions, flats and houses will increase the risk of data misuse, according to the organisations behind the poster. They claim the central database represents a backdoor for the police to gain access to possessions secured using fingerprint systems.

(trk)