The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara): I should point out that if this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 90A.

Baroness Seccombe: I welcome this group of amendments as it enables us to discuss the ins and outs of fingerprinting and fingerprint data and, indeed, what the Government intend to include under the auspices of "other biometric information". I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 90A and 111.

The question of why the UK is going for such an elaborate biometric database deserves the deepest probing during the passage of the Bill. Air travel regulations do not require nation states to collect 13 biometric details, as is often loosely stated by supporters of the national identity register. Indeed, those regulations have specifically recognised that many nation states do not want to emulate the British requirement and, in some cases, would not be permitted to do so. German privacy laws, for example, forbid the creation of a national biometric database, and for that reason their biometric system has been set up to exclude the kind of audit trail that the Government here want to impose on us.

The German system includes two index fingerprints. There was strong resistance to the idea in Germany. Indeed, it was reported in the Financial Times that there was a stampede by German citizens to secure old-style passports before the new ones came in because of opposition to national registration. I have to say that the German authorities were more open and honest than ours. Here, the public have still not been told what is proposed for passport registration from the end of next year. I have yet to meet any person not involved in this debate who is aware that to have the right to leave our country a UK citizen without a passport or whose passport has lapsed will have to go to an interrogation centre, be questioned and fingerprinted, secretly registered and given a number—and, of course, pay for that privilege.
 
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The Government do not like it when the London School of Economics report is mentioned, but perhaps the Minister should go away and read it again. She will find a devastating accumulation of evidence showing that the UK fingerprint requirement goes beyond what is being sought or permitted in most other countries. The only reason for such an elaborate database can be for the internal control of United Kingdom citizens.

It is also argued that EU regulations would require the taking and storing of these biometric details. It used to be said that that was necessary to comply with US standards. That is not true. The US immigration authorities do not require full palm prints or prints of all 10 digits; nor are they planning that. Once again, over-specification can be construed only as part of a UK or EU project to compile databases on UK and EU citizens.

The United States is upgrading its immigration facilities following the Patriot Act, but if you go to a state-of-the-art facility, such as the giant facility at Houston Airport, which opened recently, you will find that visitors are photographed. They are even asked for a fingerprint, but only of the index finger of each hand. There is no question of trying to take a print of every finger, as the Government wish.

After long flights, most people suffer substantial dehydration, and it is difficult for the readers to take a print in such circumstances. Wet pads are available for visitors to moisten their fingers, but they sometimes have to repeat three or four times the attempt to read each print. Imagine that being replicated 10 times over. Imagine the unnecessary delays. Imagine the extra costs involved in developing the technology to store and check the prints. Image the extra complexity and cost of the readers that would be required by police, immigration authorities, doctors, hospitals, social security offices and all those that the Government want to embrace within the system. The whole thing is potentially an elaborate folly and a disaster in the making that is not justified by any international standard or requirement by other nations. It is simply a luxury tool for our Government.

I hope, therefore, that if the Government persist with this scheme they will accept this limiting amendment and curb their ambitions—and so curb costs. If they do not do so, the Committee will need a very good explanation by the noble Baroness as to why the UK is gold-plating in this way and a clear statement of the costs involved.

The Earl of Onslow: This shows something unhealthy about the Government's attitude to individual liberty. It does not seem to have entered their heads that to lock up all the details of every subject of Her Majesty in a computer for future use is deeply offensive to our traditional liberties. It may be that it is becoming unfashionable to go on talking about such matters. The noble Baroness obviously wishes to talk to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, while I am speaking and she is entitled to do that, but it is—

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: No; I have a wonderful capacity to listen with one ear while speaking,
 
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particularly when it is a matter dear to the noble Earl's heart. I would never dream of missing one word that dropped from his lips.

The Earl of Onslow: I shall hold the noble Baroness to that promise. Paragraph (c) shows a deep failing in the Government's psyche. Those of us who care passionately about such liberties and who believe that the Government are there for us, not the other way round, believe that they are there to say, "You may do anything you like, except what we tell you not to". These are very old and dear liberties that we must fight and fight and fight for. Paragraph (c), which means that absolutely everything is put on the wretched register, is a perfect example of what we should resist.

The Countess of Mar: I, too, support the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, in their amendments. I spoke at some length at the first Second Reading, prior to the general election, and I am sorry that I did not speak at the second Second Reading. I feel very strongly about this. It is gold-plating on top of gold-plating and is not necessary.

Lord Selsdon: I have nothing at all against fingerprints. In fact I keep a set of my own, so that if there were any robberies, I could be eliminated as a potential criminal. My fingerprints are on some of my travel cards, so that I can obtain certain benefits when I arrive by shoving my finger in a slot and typing in the details of the aircraft I am travelling on.

I have tremendous sympathy with my noble friend Lady Seccombe—and there has been no collusion between us—on the subject of Germany, on which I intended to intervene. I go there regularly and the social democrat party is very much opposed to such moves because they do not want Germany returning to a police state. Those are not my words. All parties in Germany agree with that, because they have a pathological fear of the rise of the dominant centre.

Two fingers is all right—I am sorry I should not have said that, but their use came from the battle of Agincourt and it depends which way round you put them. It is worrying that the use of fingerprints should be deemed so important. I still prefer the original requirement to register identifying marks such as a mole or, more likely today, a tattoo—although that would occupy many pages—on a passport. There was a discreet method whereby if someone lost a finger or something, that disability would be politely and quietly noted.

As Members of the Committee know, many people, including children, lose the tops of their fingers, so I wonder what would happen if on their arrival in the United States or the United Arab Emirates—the noble Baroness seems to think that those are the two most important biometrics centres in the world—it was found that they were missing a finger. I support the amendment. I do not believe that we should make too much fuss about it, but it is so logical, sensible and gentlemanly.
 
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4 pm

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Mine is the final amendment in the group and concerns biometric information. I confess that I have a non-scientist's anxiety about biometric information. I also confess that I share the broader sentiments of the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and many others in the Committee who have expressed a general unease about the creation of what will be, in world terms, a uniquely powerful, centralised state database. I would be most grateful if the noble Baroness could assuage my concerns, although I do not expect her to do so now.

First, we all accept that Clause 1 is the determining clause as regards the information that can be captured under Schedule 1. Schedule 1 has to be read as being, in all respects, circumscribed by the provisions of Clause 1. There arises my problem, in that Clause 1 makes no reference whatever to biometric information, whereas the schedule does in paragraph 2. Furthermore, biometric information is defined in Clause 43 as data about the external characteristics of an individual,

"including, in particular, the features of an iris".

I am not a scientist, a biologist or any other "ologist", but in my terms the iris is not an external feature but one that lies behind the surface. It is not, in common parlance, external. The noble Baroness may say that that is why we have specifically mentioned the iris in the definition in Clause 43, but it says "including", and ambiguity is created by including what is not an external feature in a definition of external characteristics.

Secondly, in Clause 1—the key clause—subsection (7)(e) refers to physical characteristics capable of being used for identifying an individual. That is much wider, as I am sure the noble Baroness will agree, than biometric information as defined by Clause 43; for example, it does not say "external physical characteristics". If one wanted to be a literalist, it could include internal physical characteristics; that is to say, characteristics available only through X-ray determination or through the sampling of body fluids.

I have tabled Amendment No. 183 to ask the noble Baroness whether on Report we might consider tightening up the linkage between Clause 1(7)(e), Schedule 1(2) and Clause 43, not forgetting that in Clause 3(5) the Secretary of State can modify the information that can be collected under Schedule 1 by an affirmative resolution passed in this and the other place. If I am right in thinking that "physical characteristics" in Clause 1(7) is a much wider provision than is contained in Schedule 1 vis-à-vis biometric information, Clause 3(5) could be used to enlarge considerably the scope of information beyond that envisaged. I apologise for that circumlocutory and complex attempt to explain my concern. I do not expect the noble Baroness to deal with it on the hoof, but it is the basis for my amendment.