Child fingerprint checks at European borders

Children as young as six will have to have their fingerprints checked in order to enter or exit the European Union, under radical proposals made by Brussels. By 2019 all travellers, including children, will be required to enter a closed booth on their own, where their biometric details, stored digitally on microchips in passports, will be checked against their real fingerprints. Tony Bunyan, of the Statewatch civil liberties group, believes that the next stage of pan-European moves to tighten frontier controls is "a bridge too far".