back to article IBM sees £50m sliced from fingerprinting deal

Immigration Minister Damian Green has said the government will save £50m by renegotiating a contract previously linked to identity cards. The saving will be made by abandoning plans to store fingerprints from UK nationals on a database, a commitment made by the coalition parties within their initial plans for government. The …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Bram

    again quite pointless

    The governement are so far behind. What the norm now for many illegal immigrants or migrants from out side the EU is to go to spain portugal or another similar country that is a little lax when it comes to documents and get some papers andwalk in the front door.

    No more sneeking throug the back

  2. Sam Liddicott

    is this how it looked

    Is this how it looked when IBM helped the Nazi's? No clear bad intentions other than the pressing need to sell computers that could be used to process lots and lots of personal information?

    http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

    I've no axe to grind, but I often wonder what it was like when the evil regime gained strength and evil, and wonder if that is what is happening now - and I realise what a big interest IBM (HP etc) have to change the governments mind.

    1. No, I will not fix your computer
      Stop

      It's interesting, but don't lose sight....

      The IBM of the 30's and 40's isn't really the same IBM of today, and while it's interesting to speculate if they knew the impact of their technology, there are other far more impacting things to think about when it comes to wartime dealing, for example think about the Bush family, the two presidents that got into the Whitehouse got there because they were from a rich and powerful family (as did the Kennedys), so ask the question; "Where did the Bush get their money from (google Prescott Bush)" once you find the answer then you can go on to ask if there is a link between Thyssen, Bush, Nazis, Rockefeller, Chase Manhattan Bank and Union Bank, make your own mind up, IBM may not have been morally sound (I.A. Topf and Sons of Erfurt may not have been morally sound) but compare a company that supplied a product with organisations and people that..... (I'll let you find out).

  3. JaitcH
    WTF?

    This is reaching disturbing levels

    This new British Heinz 57 government must be setting some sort of record with the numbers of election commitments it is honouring.

    Gathering fingerprints for passport renewals was a stretch anyway, particularly since the number of offices actually issuing passports has been reduced. For example, all UK passport renewals will be handled in the U.S.A. This consolidation is being replicated across the world.

    How would they be able to get clear prints at remote offices? The skin of older peoples hands are difficult to print as it is so soft, as are hands kept in rubber gloves filled with skin softener for 24 hours, for those reluctant to donate to the governments data collections. The removal of skin hardened by arsenic and similar chemicals using abrasion often results in a very satisfying print formed of 'criss crossed' lines - totally frustrating for comparison. ;-)

    1. JaitcH
      WTF?

      Correction: This is reaching disturbing levels

      all UK passport renewals IN CANADA will be handled in the U.S.A.

  4. Blue eyed boy
    Thumb Up

    I like the use of "sliced" in the title.

    I speak from painful experience. A close encounter with a vegetable slicer - which didn't say on the box that it would also work with raw meat [1] - took a slice off the tip of my right index finger. 25 years on it still feels a bit funny as though there's a lump there, and the fingerprint of that finger still includes an oval-shaped blank space.

    [1] This was of course before the advent of the compensation culture, when incidents like this could still be blamed on user carelessness.

  5. Daniel Free

    wait does this mean....

    fingerprints at imigration in the near future?

    that made the americans so popular... though i guess london has its olympics already so what do they care...

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like