Brits' Fear of DHS

Ever since the failed car bomb attacks in London, privacy debates have been top of mind for Brits. And the fear that the Department of Homeland Security could somehow be involved has been a subtext that runs through many of the debates.

Here's an example from earlier this week that appeared in the Daily Mail about fingerprinting school children as young as 5 years old without being required to obtain parental permission -- a practice, it is safe to say, that wouldn't be too popular in the United States, either. (School administrators will use the children's fingerprints for many purposes, including taking attendance, paing for lunch and checking out library books. The schools also have permission to "take retina and iris scans and record children's voices, face shapes, hand measurements, handwriting and typing patterns," according to the article.

A reader from Cambridge posted this comment: "So does this mean that school library fingerprint data may ultimately end up at the US Department of Homeland Security?"