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LONDON - Motorists in Britain can be required to provide fingerprints at the roadside as part of a trial by police to assess hand-held, electronic mobile fingerprinting machines.
The devices enable officers on patrol to search the national fingerprint database, and senior officers hope they will save time and money.
A pilot scheme began yesterday in Bedfordshire.
The fingerprint units will be used by traffic officers because about 60 per cent of drivers stopped do not give their real names.
The first officers to use the new devices will be those working in "automatic number plate recognition" teams.
They seek out "vehicles of interest" - those that may have been used in crimes or which are uninsured or unsafe.
"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 frontline," said the Minister for Police and Security, Tony McNulty.
"It will also act as a visible deterrent, reducing fear of crime and making criminals less mobile."
The device works by electronically scanning index fingers and sending the scan to the nation fingerprint database to be checked against its collection of 6.5 million prints.
Matches are identified and returned within five minutes.
The trial will end in December next year.
- REUTERS
