Children to be Fingerprinted

The Observer carries a story today about the EU plans for a childrens’ database containing the fingerprints of all children possibly from the age of six:

British children, possibly as young as six, will be subjected to compulsory fingerprinting under European Union rules being drawn up in secret. The prints will be stored on a database which could be shared with countries around the world.

The cynic in me sees a justification for the HMG’s national identity register and desire to fingerprint British citizens. The two ideas are so closely linked, I can’t help feeling that maybe this is not so much an EU initiative but a British one dressed up in EU clothing. Mind you, the obsessive statists in the EU are only too happy to jump on a convenient passing bandwagon, particularly where it involves grabbing more power over the populace:

The use of fingerprints and other biometric data is designed to prevent passport fraud and allow European member states to meet US entry visa requirements, but the decision to fingerprint children has disturbed human rights groups.

Hmm, the same arguments here. The United States’ obsessive and paranoid entry requirements. Supposing we don’t want to go to the US and be subjected to their immigration controls? I certainly refuse to while this nonsense is ongoing. Therefore, there is no reason for me to comply with their requirements. And, are we seriously suggesting that the level of passport fraud is so great that it requires the fingerprinting of a whole continent? Really?

‘This is a sea change,’ said Ben Hayes, spokesman for Statewatch. ‘We are going from fingerprinting criminals to universal fingerprinting without any real debate. In the long term everyone’s fingerprints will be stored on a central database. You have to ask what will be the costs to a person’s privacy.’

Quite. Where is the debate? Where is the open analysis of the underlying rationale? Why are we to be treated as criminals by our own governments – and in this case, an unelected, unaccountable body that overrides national parliaments?

Of course, fingerprinting six-year olds will teach them compliance with and acceptance of casual surveillance by the state. We may protest but we are already yesterday; tomorrow belongs to the six-year old patiently waiting in line to be fingerprinted.

When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already. . . . What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”

Adolf Hitler

We’ve been fed so much propaganda and seen the virtual collapse of the national identity card scheme, that I can’t help but wonder whether this is just another manoeuvre in the game. A means of explaining to an increasingly sceptical British people that it was the EU that wanted it all along and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, so why try? After all, it’s all their fault. “Nothing to do with us, guv. It’s EU rules. More ’n me jobsworth…”

That’s the trouble with all this spin and counter spin. You lose the ability to tell what is real anymore…