MISCARRIAGES of justice could arise from the UK government鈥檚 plan to use biometric ID card data to crack unsolved crimes, security experts warned this week.
On Monday prime minister Tony Blair said that one of the advantages of the planned ID cards is that police will be able to compare fingerprint data from the ID card database with 鈥渢he fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes鈥�.
This makes everyone with a card a suspect, say critics. 鈥淲e were told the national ID system would assure identity based on biometrics. Now it seems it鈥檚 to be a national suspect database,鈥� says Ross Anderson, a computer security engineer at the University of Cambridge.
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鈥淣ow it seems the national ID system is to be a national suspect database鈥�
With fingerprint evidence proven unreliable in a number of high-profile miscarriages of justice (New Scientist, 17 September 2005, p 6) wrongful accusations are likely. 鈥淚f the Home Office starts matching thousands of prints a week against a database of 60 million people, the number of misidentifications will become substantial,鈥� Anderson predicts.
The cards will be issued to British citizens from 2009.