A reward of £1,000 has been put up for grabs for the fingerprints of Prime Minster Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. According No2ID and Privacy International, the pair (Brown & Smith) are “wanted identity felons”. The campaign by the two groups claim that Brown’s and Smith’s plan to “steal the fingerprints of the entire British population… will be the identity theft crime of the century.”
Wanted (click the image for the larger version)
This morning, this poster (click right for larger version) dropped into the mailbox, and it’s amusing, shocking, and very, very daring – but it will hopefully get you thinking.
Any fingerprints submitted should be “obtained lawfully, and can be located beer glasses, doorknobs or any object with a hard surface. Corroborating evidence is required”. Should either of the privacy groups get hold of the pair’s fingerprints, they intend to make them publicly available.
A very similar event happened in Germany recently, the Chaos Computer Club. That group managed to obtain the German interior minister’s fingerprints.
Personal Investigator Simon Davies is clear philosophical and told The Register: “I’m sure they can cook up something if they want to.” But he warned of the dangers inherent in the Government’s plans: “The government is blindingly ignorant that biometrics in the future will be crucial to personal security. It seems to believe that personal security equates only to the personal security that government offers. Unless government can come up with a framework for secure biometric revocation, it’s criminally irresponsible to demand fingerprints. And it would be folly for us to give them away to government without a fight.”
Meanwhile, No2ID National Coordinator Phil Booth has also challenged Smith & Jones Brown to hand themselves over for the good of the Nation. Again, he told The Register: “If they truly believe that the ID scheme will ‘secure’ their personal identities, the best thing Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith could do would be to surrender their OWN fingerprints and get us to donate the grand to a charity of their choice. Failing to surrender their fingerprints could be seen as tacit acknowledgement that they have no real faith in their own scheme.”
The posters are intended to be used as a marketing campaign and are hope to be distributed widely. The end result should be that Smith and Brown will be wearing gloves at all public occasions, especially indoors. Looking nervous will be mandatory at this point. In particular, Donna Kebab shops will be on red alert, and it’s thought that Brown’s fingerprints are all over the 2008 budget, ink smudges included for those wanting a head start.
