Oh dear, oh dear... I was counting posts to see how long it would be before the "b" word was mentioned (sigh). You have been listening wide-eyed to Uncle Gordon, haven't you? Now I'll type this slowly: biometrics do not work. OK? A significant proportion of the population will be unable to be enrolled on the biometric system, simply because their markers - fingerprints or iris scans - are not of sufficient quality for the scanners to recognise. Oh, yes, and btw, the scanners use flat scanned prints, not full rolled prints. Flat prints are not admissible in a court of law - ever wondered why not? The published error rates don't match the error rates experienced in testing - the false match and false non-match thresholds are still way too far apart. If you wind the threshold up until no-one who is not on the system is recognised (i.e. approx zero false match), then you will get anything up to 25% false non-matches - i.e. your GP can't access your notes because the computer doesn't recognise his biometric identifiers. Don't have quotable sources to hand, but go and have a look at the discussion forums at http://wwwno2id.net and search for biometrics - more cited/referenced information there than you can easily shake a stick at. Besides which, spending untold millions on a database of dubious benefit and manifold hazards seems to be rather a waste of money compared with, say, employing more ambulance staff, paying them a decent wage and giving them half-decent kit? Now counting posts to see when someone will inevitably bleat out the, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" calumny. When that happens, I may well bite through my desk...