Mandatory fingerprinting for all over children over 12. Does this sound like an idea straight out of a dystopian nightmare? Wrong! This comes from a report (EU doc no: 9403/1/06) from the EU Council Presidency meeting of 26 June 2006. And it gets worse individual states will be fingerprinting infants from day one â?? as soon as this becomes technically possible.
Why the age of six? Is it to protect the integrity of the youngest? No such luck. As the report states: â??Scientific tests have confirmed that the papillary ridges on the fingers are not sufficiently developed to allow biometric capture and analysis until the age of six.â??
This issue was previously discussed in the meeting of the Visa Working Party (EU doc no: 10540/06). This latter discussion shows an unanimous will to adopt compulsory fingerprinting and no real integrity objections to states to adopt fingerprinting at an earlier age.
In May the BBC reported that children under the age of five were being fingerprinted to attempt to ensure that fraudulent benefit claims made by asylum seekers were unsuccessful.
(via Statewatch)