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back to article Foreign and Commonwealth Office plans biometrics bonanza

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office plans to buy biometric systems for security use in British embassies. FCO Services, the department's internal system integrator, plans to spend around £15m over three years on a new framework agreement for biometric software, algorithms and hardware, according to a notice published on 31 …

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  1. amanfromMars Silver badge

    Chinese Whispers....

    "..and behavioural analysis." .... That presumably is spooky psychological profiling. A state of the art phorm rather than any scientific discipline. Get that one wrong and everything goes to pot and the dogs.

    And that also requires a pretty especial algorithm too in order to ensure excellence of service rather than excess of surveillance.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Home office & FCO

    Home office vets entry to the UK now, it was taken away from FCO... so presumably this idea comes form the Home Office. Sounds very much like Madam JS.

    Next time you see Jacqui Smith walking down the road, give her a cold hard suspicious stare and see if she walks funny, like she's uncomfortable. We call that the terrorist gait, she's probably a terrorist, or Mexican, best shoot first and ask questions later just in case!

    After all behavioural analysis by computers is infallible....like phrenology or other forms of psychoanalysis. That's why they never accidentally let out nutters who haven't been cured from mental institutions.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 14:47

    Of course, she may just be walking funny because Richard, having had his videos taken away, is properly exercising his marital obligations once again.

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  4. Graham Marsden

    So...

    ... let's hope that they find the system a) unreliable and b) unworkable such that c) they'll realise that biometrics are no magic solution.

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  5. M7S

    GIven HMG data security generally

    and the fact that I understand some SIS officers are posted abroad under diplomatic cover, thereby needing to be registered on the system so they can get into work, would they want their DNA profiles or whatever biometric is used on a database/system which might perhaps in the future e compromised by an overseas government?

    Of course they may have something in place now, we'll hopefully never need to know.

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  6. 4irw4y
    Joke

    Sometimes They Feel So Lonely

    From the included manual:

    "Some extra free services of ID-card allow %username%:

    - use the passive detection of your ID-card when you're on the move, for the fastest ever courrier delivery of snail mail & telegrams;

    - enjoy escorted Alpha- and Theta-tuning of %username% ("I'll get lucky", "I can make it", "theregister.co.uk is a lesbian magazine", etc). All you need is to send an SMS to SN "666" and submit the preferrable string, so you won't feel lonely any more, anywhere".

    73

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