The Arizona Department of Public Safety has a new law-enforcement tool: a car-mounted license-plate scanner. Similar to a radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars - 250 or more per hour - and links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner.

THE Government has defended its policy on retaining the DNA profiles of innocent people after it came under criticism from an Essex MP.

An evaluation of the Home Office scheme to operate border controls via iris recognition “pretty much fails” Project Iris, according to Tory MP Ben Wallace. Wallace has been doggedly pursuing the results of the evaluation since autumn 2005, and these were quietly placed in the House of Commons library in late December.

For the first time, the giant software maker is acknowledging the help of the secretive agency, better known for eavesdropping on foreign officials and, more recently, U.S. citizens as part of the Bush administration’s effort to combat terrorism.

The spectre of international fascism legitimated by “anti-terrorism” laws has apparently additionally reached 160 people in the Office of the Attorney General in Mexico’s — they have reportedly been implanted with microchips that get them access to secure areas of their headquarters.

Passengers face massive delays at airports because of problems with new iris-recognition equipment, a Tory MP claimed yesterday.

Iris scans will not form part of the UK Government’s planned identity card system the National Identity Register (NIR). The only biometric information to be held on ID cards will now be fingerprints, in contrast to previously stated plans.

The US Government has admitted that it broke privacy laws in its domestic airline passenger data scheme. The Homeland Security Department has admitted that it gathered more information than it had said it would.

British Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, the architect of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s so-called diversity and integration policy, is set to unveil a controversial plan later his month whereby thousands of council (municipal) workers across the UK will effectively be asked to spy on Muslim radicals and extremist organizations in their midst.

For more than a year, the U.S. Justice Department has been in discussions with Internet companies and privacy rights advocates, trying to come up with a plan that would make it easier for investigators to check records of Web traffic.

Under new measures, Britons who enter the United States are to have their fingerprints recorded and stored on an FBI database along with those of criminals.

The Council of the European Union (the 27 governments) are currently discussing the format and use of residence permits for the 17 million plus people with the right to reside in the EU.

In Ghana, the minister of public sector reform, Paa Kwesi-Nduom said the government would, by the end of January, complete the installation of the biometric clock system. He said the purpose is for government workers to clock in when they arrive at their workplaces and to clock out when they leave. He also said it would guarantee high productivity within the public sector.

The government’s plan to use a biometric identification system aimed only at Chinese passengers at nationwide points of entry will not breach human rights and will heed national security, Executive Yuan spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang said yesterday.