UK police officers can check fingerprints on the spot now

The new device, developed by the National Policing Improvement Agency, will surely make the process of checking individual’s identity faster, but there are still certain concerns over civil liberties.

The aim is to facilitate identification of individuals saving the public and officers time and also catch more culprits in general. Tom McArthur, NPIA Director of Operations, said: "Identification is crucial to police investigations and giving officers the ability to do this on-the-spot within minutes is giving them more time to spend working in their communities, helping to fight crime, bringing more offenders to justice and better protecting the public."

The fingerprints are checked against a national fingerprint database IDENT1 for verification, though no records are stored on the system, it is claimed.

Big Brother Watch director Daniel Hamilton believes that there are some privacy and security concerns about using such kind of device. “The police should absolutely not be using this for random finger print checks,” he told. He states that police officers should use the device if they have a genuine belief that someone is guilty of the crime, not out of curiosity.

Hamilton also pays attention to the security of the system. The system should be made as secure as possible in order to prevent the data loss.