Biometrics

Mr. Clegg
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 21 March 2007, Official Report, column 969W, on biometrics, whether technology is (a) currently available and (b) in development to conduct such checks; and if he will make a statement.

John Reid
Technology is available that could attempt to match a facial image against a still image obtained from CCTV footage. However, the results are likely to be variable and would depend on the features of the technology used, the quality of the available images and the number of facial images that a single CCTV image was checked against.