It isn't bad enough that every idiocies coming from America is sooner or later copied in Europe. Now the E.U. is trying to take the lead !!!!

P Beck, London, England

The very title of the position "EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security" should send chills down everyone's spine.

Timothy Farrell, Idaho, USA

The idea of define a proper multi identity collection was discussed already with no connection on security or terrorrorism and appropriate evidence of computerised collection of personal details drawn from all individual not just EU member. It depending on the accuracy of how technology can manage the distinguishing of individual imprint and related personal information.

Domenico Perri, London, UK

"Proposals were revealed yesterday"?

Er, no. The Commission's annual policy strategy for 2008 was adopted and published on 21 February.

"Buried in a lengthy European Commission document"?

Hardly. The annual policy strategy is 24 pages, and the fingerprint database proposal is highlighted as a "key action".

Gus Friar, London,

It's so easy to give up the freedoms. And it's difficult to nearly impossible to get them back.

tom, amsterdam, netherlands

What is the problem? The majority of British people are the first to claim that they want to fight crime. Yet when measures are introduced which may help do so they shout about human rights, police state, Big Brother. How exactly do you think criminals are brought to justice? By the way bomb makers do leave fingerprints....on elastic tape and inside rubber gloves.

John Hand, Bangor, Northern Ireland

PS The difference between national and EU plans for infringement of civil liberties was that, in theory, at least there are clear remedies in the British system. Pre-Blair, these were intrinsic and should be again.

I was just reading the document and found that the EU has decided on a programme of "Social Reality Stocktaking". Big Brother is stocktaking you!

Christopher Gillibrand, Brussels in exile, Belgium

The time for some sort of civil disobedience is rapidly approaching. Refuse to give your DNA & fingerprints for minor misdemeanours. DNA swabs & fingerprints without conviction is totally wrong. So are all the other multitude of surveillance & control activities being carried out daily.

I'm glad there are thousands of others out there who are totally sick of this. Didn't we have to fight for our freedom before?

Mark Duffin, Stratford Upon Avon/Shanghai, GB/China

I agree that you will all be guilty until proved innocent. This would be only Orwellian police-state and surveillance-society. If it were executed such a absurd policy in Turkey would be accused of being a police and militarized-state by the EU...

Hakan Kara, Ankara, Turkey

I can't understand why people get so upset over a few fingerprints...It really doesn't affect personal freedom as much as the dramatists make out. Surely this will benefit international security, and security is something we all want. If you've got nothing to hide then you shouldn't be worried!

Andrew, Reading, Berkshire

Funny, but I've just checked online the newspapers Berliner Morgenpost, Hamburger Abendblatt, Die Welt, De Telegraaf (Holland) and Le Figaro ( France) and none features this story about fingerprints. I think we need to be far more worried closer to home about what New Labour is doing to our civil liberties.

Mike Mitchell, Spalding, England

I have no criminal convictions. I have never had a driving licence or passport. My DNA and fingerprints are not on any database . That's the way it should be.
In the past, if your fingerprints were taken by the police investigating a crime, and you were found to be innocent of any criminal involvement, your fingerprint records were destroyed. That is as it should be.
Now Police will be able to demand DNA and fingerprints, keep them on record, and pass them to anyone they choose.
If I am innocent of any crime, then they have no right to treat me as though I might just become a criminal at some future date. Innocent until proven Guilty is the basis of British Law. There is no provision in Law to assume Guilt before a crime has even been committed.
Bribery and Corruption is common in many EU countries. They should clean up their own Laws before interfering in a Justice System that was the envy of the world.

B.P.Russell, Windsor, England

During my long career as a law enforcement officer, I admit that many times I would have relished having available fingerprints of suspects, current photos of them, and any other information that would facilitate an interrogation or an actual arrest.

But the larger question is: How much Big Brother are we willing to tolerate? It is, after all, a relatively small step from "Euro dollar" to "Euro fingerprint," thence to "Euro photo," "Euro ID card," and other massive citizen databases. There are abundant examples from the last century illustrating that "freedom" and "security" are not synonymous. Have we learned anything yet? Or are we condemning ourselves to a repetition?

Bob Otto, Lebanon, OHIO, USA

Civil Liberties v Increased personal security; I know which I would chose, along with all those who have suffered as a result of the activities of terrorist fanatics. Its not a nice world we live in nowadays.

David Dickson, Montpellier, France

Why not just barcode babies at birth.

This sort of thing has gone far too far. I'm normally pro-europe but if this is how they think they should treat citizens then we should pull out yesterday.

Sadly our current government is even worse.

rob, bristol,

All 27 EU Member States are currently implementing legislation - pushed through by Britain - requiring communications service providers to keep databases of every phone call, fax message, e-mail, SMS, MMS, etc) sent or received by every EU citizen. This was the logical next step so, if this is "Big Brother Europe", it has been inspired by "Little Brother Britain".

Joe, Brussels, Belgium

I completely agree with Michael. I have the bronze plaque sent to my grandmother by the government when her only son was killed in the Great War. It is inscribed " He Died For Freedom" He shouldn't have bothered, his sacrifice has been betrayed along with the sacrifice of millions of other British and Commonwealth servicemen who fought and died for the promise of freedom for their loved ones. 9/11 has succeeded in giving governments the excuses they needed to impose what tyrants of the past have failed to do.
It must be stopped,and soon!

Robert Hawkes, Wellingborough, England

I shall refuse to cooperate as far as possible even if it does mean I have to leave the EU. This is not the freedom that my grandparents fought for.

Peter House, Walton, Surrey

South Africa fingerprints all identity card holders and driving licence holders. Crime in South Africa (and the level of driving offences including speeding) is at levels which makes most of Western Europe look like a sleepy peaceful village. The fingerprint system has not reduced the level of crime,
To fingerprint speeding drivers and litter louts is to criminalise the offence in a manner contrary to freedom within Britain. This is another example of this administration salami slicing our freedoms away until they establish a Big Brother Orwellian state which will m,ake 1984 seem like a Boy Scouts picnic.

" To your tents O Israell"

Daniel Cramer, Welwyn, UK

This will get worse before it gets better. It will get better when a popular revolution in just one country leads to the overthrow of its government and withdrawal from the EU. (It won't happen democratically because 'legitimate' national governments will be unwilling or unable to withdraw). The movement will spread like wildfire. People want freedom. The downfall of the Soviet Union is the historical precedent.
Bring it on.

Tony Jones, Grantham, UK

I am against it, and even more against sharing it with the USA. The USA government has shown an apalling disregard for human rights over the past decade.

bill, Bristol, UK

I would like to echo Miguel Torres' remarks about CCTV cameras and the like. I feel it is strange that Brits are quick to rage when foreigners do the watching, while allowing their fellow Brits to maintain Orwellian secret rooms with loads of TV screens, which are supposed to reduce the risk of bombings, but may also lead to the surveillance state.

When I go into Amsterdam, I rarely think about Big Brother. London is another matter. I can't personally see how fingerprinting is going to increase security, set against the costs and trouble involved, but I feel that British people are far too ready to indulge in a xenophobic knee-jerk reaction against "Europeans", people whose countries, cultures, history and languages they hardly know anything at all about.

Eric Dickens, Blaricum, Netherlands

Wake up U.K its later than you think!

I went to my new dentist last week. The x ray of my teeth went straight onto a computer database which is only a broadband connection away from a national data base.

paul, whalley,

Hitler would be proud of the EU Commission slowly instigating an Orwellian police state.

Christopher Larmer, Sai Kung, Hong Kong

So fingerprinting will help fight the war against terrorism? I agree. Unless of course, the terrorists wore gloves! If they are smart enough to build and plan a terrorist attack, I am sure they are smart enough to equip themselves with gloves.

No, the real reason is control of the people. The law turned upside down. We will all be guilty until proved innocent.

AW, London, UK

The EU proving once again that they are NO better then the Stazi of East Germany, the old USSR, and North Korea. Europe is not a collection of free countries. This is not what my grandparents fought for and people died for in WW2.

Michael, Pool,

Liberal Democrats have supported this wretched project from the beginning. And they won't be the only people having a "Damascus Road" conversion this morning. I live in the centre of Brussels, 400 yards from the Parliament. At least people should now believe me. They have worked on the British principle of innocent until proved guilty with respect to the EU - the other way around over here!.

Christopher Gillibrand, Brussels in exile, Belgium

europeans need to get their act together fast to prevent this happeningt,fingerprinting would only be the start and would leed ultimatly to total control of euro populationsfight back,write to you politicians and state you will not supply prints under any circumtances not involving a crimainal conviction

Croc, Rotorua, New Zealand

To Andrew Murray: I come from Spain, I have had a so-feared ID card since I was 14, and I do not feel half as controlled in Spain as I do in the UK. Do not get me wrong, I love this country and want to live here the rest of my life, but I find it really hard to get used to all the CCTVs, checks in the airports, controls in buses and the tube, etc. So, yes, the British people have to say enough, but to their own, all-controlling government first and foremost.

Miguel Torres, London, UK

Fingerprinted for dropping litter. Really??

D.Maclean, Shanghai, China

When the public wake up and look into the hidden meaning of the phrase "New World Order" so often used by our current politicians maybe then they will fully understand the reason behind this mass intelligence gathering operation.

Steve P, Leeds, England

The erosion of our freedoms by the unelected and unaccountable continues and at some point we the British people must draw a line and say enough, no more.

I believe that day is fast approaching and politicians will re-learn that they are not our masters but our servants.

The fate that befell the Soviet Union can equally apply to the EU if they continue down the path they have chosen.

To our domestic politicians the message is clear; instigate a reform of the EU or we will remove you from office.

Andrew Murray, Forfar, UK

Ideas like a centralised EU database of fingerprints, coupled with the EU's well-known 'democratic deficit', must greatly increase concern about what exactly it is that's developing on our continent.

No body such as the EU with a severe lack of accountability should have any level of control in areas such as crime and justice.

Does anyone possibly still deny that the EU is trying to become a pan-European state?

Mike Hanlon, London, UK

Only people actually convicted of a serious crime, such as. a crime resulting in jail or prison should have to submit to fingerprinting. Sex crimes should have DNA on file.

Lois Ewing, Springfield, MIssouri USA

with fingerprints, madrid took hours to find out who the 191 killed in the terrorist attack were. in London, it took days or weeks to find out who the few people killed were. hmmm you see?

mark, alicante, spain

Well, what do the Europhiles have to say about this ... "A spokesman for Franco Frattini, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, said: “This is something we are doing more work on, as a very important, if not indispensable, tool in combating cross-border organised crime and terrorism. So we will certainly pursue this.” ?

It seems to me like something that the Europhobes have been constantly warning would happen and have been ridiculed for suggesting.

Perhaps the EU has let the TRUE reason for Blair's enthusiasm for ID Cards out of the bag.

Blair obviously thinks that we are stupid enough not to recognise an EU-led pre-emptive attack on our liberties.

Vote them out and ensure that 'cuddly Dave' is forced to write a referendum on continuing EU membership into the first page of his manifesto!

Edwin Thornber, Bucharest, Romania

Ya, your moving closer to the United States, you had better pass a constittution so that you can break it too. Good luck!

Peter R, Wash DC,