How long until the police take advantage of this and acquire some of the fingerprints for their own database ?. Yet another example of the Labour made Police State. Certainly I would not trust the stasi type police forces that we seem to have nowadays with any data let alone this.

John, Woking, Surrey

Just over a year ago, my wife and I went to Florida for a holiday, and on arrival at Miami airport, passing through immigration control, we had our fingerprints taken. Whilst this added somewhat to the delay (but it didn't take that long), our thoughts were that it was a very good idea and wondered why more countries, including the UK, didn't do it! So yes, people coming into the UK with the intention of carrying out some form of attack would face an additional deterrent. Such practices can only be good for national security and I don't see how they can in any way impinge on personal privacy.

Walter Birchinall, Peterborough, UK

The key sentence in the article is:
"It will enable domestic and international passengers to mingle in the shops, restaurants, cafés and bars of the terminal’s departure lounge."

Exactly: BAA's motivation is the bottom line. Mixing arriving and leaving passengers, doubles their retail footfall and does away with the need to have those corridors of shops that we rush past as we leave the terminal to meet family and friends.

The only way to fight this intrusive violation of our personal privacy is to boycott any terminal that requires fingerprinting. That will be inconvenient and more costly for many, but I see no other course of action that will work.

I have told my tour operator of my boycott, and they have agreed that if I have to cancel, they will refund my deposit because this development is a "significant loss to the tour". I hope other operators will be as enlightened.

Steve Hoffman, Whitchurch, Hampshire UK

This is disproportionate and unnecessary. At other BAA airports, such as Gatwick domestic and international travellers mingle without fingerprinting.

Iain, Guildford,

What about the health implications, is the fingerprint reader self cleaning? Imagine how easy it would be to transmit the winter sickness bug, or having to put your hand on the fingerprint reader when the person before you forgot to wash their hand after having been to the toilet. The sickness bug is easily transmitted on a ship so why not alll rounnd the world.

michael tomlinson, chester, uk

Surely allowing international & domestic passengers to mingle is a far bigger threat to security. So the terrorist from abroad can hand over items to a domestic terrorist who can then travel further domestically. Better yet they can arrange strategy meetings in the terminal!

Well done BAA & the Brit Govt. And I'm sure the building costs were lower. To hell with our freedom!
If we have no freedom what are we protecting- our almost worthless homes?

A B, windsor, uk

BAA is a company, a business, not an authority. And no, they don't have the authority to do this. Only the power.

william Haines, northwood,

"1984" anyone?

jonathan, New York City, usa

I'm with HC, London on this one - I won't be using a terminal that fingerprints you.

Let me suggest how this is going to pan out, in stages
-1: international transfers to domestic flights
-2: now they "need" all passengers to be fingerprinted
-3: the goverment says "oh, that's useful, you've got millions of peoples' fingerprints - can we have a copy, thanks so much".

There is NO need for this and it DOESN'T make the journey quicker or safer. What would make my journey safer is if the UK government withdrew its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The government here would like
-ID cards, given have a chance
-cameras everywhere
-biometric data on everyone
-your medical records open to ALL public employees

None of this is for our good, it's for theirs - in the mistaken belief that somehow that, rather than a decent foreign policy, will make us safe. It won't.

Clive, Surrey,

I strongly disagree with Stanley from Haifa.

The "why worry if you've nothing to hide" argument (if successful) would quickly lead to government accessing people's bank records and tapping our telephone lines. As long as you've NEVER claimed a benefit longer than necessary, or forgotten to pay your tax, or mentioned doing something naughty over the phone, then why worry? Would Stanley be comfortable with routine strip-searching at airports?

Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention exists for a reason, and while public security is important, so too is the right of every person to respect for their private life.... regardless how "imperfect" that person is by Stanley's standards.

Richard Murtagh, Birmingham, UK

I'm told by BAA that you don't need to go through the finger-printing procedure if you don't want to. According to their Customer Services if you refuse you will be directed through a different boarding procedure which may take longer. I've asked them to put this in writing but am still waiting.

Neither my MP nor BAA can tell me why finger-printing is neccessary when passports and photographs work elsewhere. In fact neither my MP nor BAA have even acknowledged that I've asked the question.

Just another reason to avoid LHR if you can.

Graham Davidson, Aboyne, Aberdeenshire

Under no circumstances would I ever give my fingerprints to anyone.

In Feb 2007 Tony Blair said, regarding fingerprints on the National Identity Register:

"They will be able, for example, to compare the fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes against the information held on the register."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/20/nidcards20.xml

Paragraph 170 of the Home Affairs Select Committee Report on ID cards states:

"The National Physical Laboratory's feasibility study noted that in one-to-one checks good fingerprint systems were able to achieve a false match rate of 1 in 100,000".

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmhaff/130/13007.htm#a28

i.e. Automatic fingerprint recognition is NOT perfect - your fingerprint could, as a consequence of the technology being used, match one found at a crime scene or in a terrorist base.

Brian Drury, London Colney, England

Why is everyone so worked up over this? We already live in a "surveillance society". With CCTV on every street corner, cameras are trained to monitor our every move. Just look at ANPR. This records ALL passing vehicles details - and the Government keeps the details of who, why, where and when permanently. Even the Lord Chief Justice said this was illegal (the details of innocent motorists should have a time limit before being destroyed), but the Government just ignored him. At least when you fly you can use the terrorist threat to justify taking fingerprints. Why not increase security? Fingerprints are tricky to fake. As it is, you have to tell the Airlines everything about yourself before you fly [and that information is transmitted to God knows who], so what's in a fingerprint? At least it's useless without the finger! And as for a private company having these details - they couldn't do a worse job than the Gov in keeping our information secure!

Dominic, London, UK

With all that is going on in the world is this really a problem?
They do it to us routinely in other countries. As someone who flies regularly between Heathrow and JFK I'm all for anything that keeps us safer.

VSM
New York

Victoria Michaelis, Bedford, NY

Why not simply strip all passengers to their underwear, handcuff them to their seats and have armed guards constantly patrolling the aisles - if hand luggage is banned from flights aswell then perhaps we can eliminate the terrorist threat to planes completely. I welcome these new fingerprinting measures!

Jack, London, England

Travellers should refuse to give their fingerprints. BAA can take it or leave it.

Michael Fremlins, London, UK

This has nothing to do with security at Terminal 5 - there are much easier ways at the design stage to achieve that.

No, this is about biometric ID cards

Read the Crosby report commissioned by the government into the introduction of ID cards.

Crosby says that they should not be mandatory but that the best way to overcome opposition to ID cards is for them to offer real benefits to carriers. A quicker check-in and avoiding fingerprinting at airports could be one benefit. Express service in banks and government officers are others.

I am sure that we will start to see Express Services introduced in all sorts of different ways with a deliberately slow and cumbersome line for dissenters.

Security at Terminal 5 - NO - Just more government manipulation.

R Bingham, Lauzun, France

This is nothing to do with security, and everything to do with herding the public into the airport's retail area.

Andy, Barnsley,

".....as it had been the authority’s decision to have a common departure lounge.

“We requested that they take measures to ensure the integrity of the UK border. We are content that the measures they have taken ensure the security of the UK border. The design of the system is a matter for BAA.” ...."

So all this is because BAA have been unable to design a sensible working system! Why?? Because they are and always have been entirely incompetent at what they do. They garner obscene profits at the expense of the traveller and I'm
convinced that the data obtained from this exercise wil not be afforded anything like aequate protection.

Jeffers, Maidstone, UK

I cannot understand what all the fuss is about. This is a good solid spanish company that is doing this and our government should be trusted entirely to protect our data. Our government has never told us any lies and the MPs are a trustworthy group of people committed to looking after our civil rights. We should sleep easy in our beds and avoid terminal 5. ;-)

Rex, Bransgore,

So what happens when your finger print data is stolen by a large criminal gang who get jobs at the airport? Then use your details to implicate you in crimes they committed or store them for any future use of the technology, like buying online, opening secure laptops etc.

Unlike passports criminals can't exactly rob a bank using a cut of your face strapped to their heads. This is information used to solve crimes after the fact.

This is a lazy and cheap way to perform the task at hand and as usual it's the public how shoulder the risk.

Nothing to hide nothing to fear? Tell that to innocents serving time in jails all around the world, or all those who have had to go through the trauma of false accusations. It's all well and good until the police take you from your family or your family from you and you have to spend the next months or years of your life fighting to clear you name.

Ross, Southampton, UK

It's simple: handle some sandpaper before going to Heathrow. Your prints do grow back, but many people don't have prints because of their work (brickies and yachtsmen, for example). It's one reason the ID card system will be a shambles. The US INS already encounters problems taking 10 fingerprints from visitors (although they handle that in their inimitable brutal way).

Kay Tie, York,

Quote: "I'm British and living in the USA. If you fly into the USA you'll find that fingerprinting is routine - no exceptions."

I suppose that makes it alright then. We went to war with them, that was a good idea wasn't it!

How about we make up our own minds?

Ross, Southampton, UK

I'm British and living in the USA. If you fly into the USA you'll find that fingerprinting is routine - no exceptions.

Roi Brooks, san francisco, california

Surly any decision to implement a security method that is as potentially intrusive as this cannot simple be left to a commercial organisation. The government seem to be moving away from it's duty to protect the rights of individuals and more toward collaboration with big business,

tony wood, London, UK

What's the big deal. I fail to see why anyone would worry about their finger prints being on record,unless of course they have something to hide. It it makes for a safer faster journey why not use it. No doubt the same people would have protested about introduction of passports birth certificates and use of surnames had they been around at the time

stanley, Haifa ,

Despite having been a loyal, business class customer of BA for over 15 years, I will never fly with them whilst they allow BAA to continue with this disgusting breach of my liberty. I hope others will take the same step.

HC, London,

This is just unacceptable. We are becoming a police state. Please can everyone boycott this terminal to show that we will not accept the way that the British government is destroying our traditional English liberties and our human dignity.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,