Fingerprinting

An Italian parliamentary panel gave initial approval to a plan to fingerprint everyone in the country, a move that could defuse criticism over a mandatory program to fingerprint Gypsies. The House of Deputies finance commission gave the go-ahead to funding for fingerprinting starting in 2010 for national identity cards.

Some workers are doing it at Dunkin' Donuts, at Hilton hotels, even at Marine Corps bases. Employees at a growing number of businesses are starting and ending their days by pressing a hand or finger to a scanner that logs the precise time of their arrival and departure -- information that is automatically reflected in payroll records. Manufacturers say these biometric devices improve efficiency and streamline payroll operations.

Los Angeles Police Commission President Anthony Pacheco on Friday ordered the panel's civilian watchdog to investigate disclosures that the LAPD's fingerprint experts have bungled cases and implicated the wrong people in crimes. Pacheco -- responding to a story in The Times on Friday -- expressed outrage that top LAPD officials had not informed his five-member board about the extent of the problems in the department's Latent Print Unit.

Late on the morning of April 14, 2006, a troubling letter rolled off the fax machine in the harried, disordered fingerprint unit of the Los Angeles Police Department. Months before, one of the unit's print specialists had determined that several prints lifted from a cellphone store where a burglary had occurred belonged to Maria Maldonado, a 25-year-old hospital technician. Two others in the unit had signed off on the work.

Chicago drivers have a new way to pay for gasoline: with their fingertips. Ten Shell gas stations in the Windy City are testing biometric systems that let consumers walk up to the pump, scan their fingertips on a device and fill up. The systems, also installed at Shell convenience stores, are linked to customers' checking or credit card accounts for payment.

The kind of greeting a foreigner receives at immigration upon arrival at an international airport can be a good, if imperfect, indication of the country that waits on the other side of the barrier. London's Heathrow? Long queues and lousy service. New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International? Crumbling infrastructure and over-the-top bureaucracy. Some Middle Eastern airports? Slow-moving lines that can be circumvented with the right connections and cash.

The government enacted a law that requires visiting U.S. citizens to be fingerprinted upon arrival, an official said. Conservatives drafted the law in retaliation for a U.S. measure requiring fingerprinting of visitors from Iran and other countries, which was implemented after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had opposed the bill, saying, "We do not have a problem with American people. We oppose only the U.S. government's bullying and arrogance."

A plan to scan the fingerprints of 2,200 Irvine high school students to ease lunch lines was scrapped this week after angry parents argued it would violate teens' privacy rights. A spokesman for the Irvine Unified School District said district administrators had been unaware of University High School's proposal and had halted its implementation. "This is not something we will be using at our schools," said Ian Hanigan, district spokesman.

Individual privacy is under threat around the world as governments continue to introduce surveillance and information-gathering measures, according to an international rights group. Although privacy is improving in the former communist states of Eastern Europe, it is worsening across Western Europe, London-based Privacy International said. Concerns about terrorism, immigration and border security are driving the spread of identity and fingerprinting systems, it said. Greece, Romania and Canada had the best records of the 47 countries surveyed.

Sheriff's deputies in the Phoenix area are asking drivers getting ticketed for criminal traffic violations, such as excessive speeding, to provide their fingerprints. The fingerprinting is part of a program that Sheriff Joe Arpaio said would help fight identity theft. Phoenix has the highest rate of identity theft complaints in the country, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Fingerprinting will help identify people with stolen or falsified driver's licenses, Arpaio said.