R25 Response Accepted

Fingerprints for identity verification

Recommendation

Fingerprints should be used as a means of verifying identity.

Published Evidence Summary
The following publicly available evidence relates to this recommendation:
Government response: Accepted. Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 received Royal Assent. No independent verification has been carried out.
Sources
Government response (2004-06-22): Accepted Source: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2004-06-22/debates/3637ce59-cd9a-462c-8b69-a29dc01e93a2/BichardInquiryReport Text: The Home Secretary made a statement to Parliament on 22 June 2004, the day the Bichard Inquiry Report was published, accepting all 31 recommendations in full. The government stated it was "in principle, accepting Sir Michael's main recommendations and will act on them immediately." Implementation le Progress update (2006-11-08): In Progress Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 received Royal Assent. The Act implemented other robust identity verification methods but did not adopt fingerprints as a general means of verifying identity for DBS checks. Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/47/contents
How was this evidence gathered?
Evidence searched by baseline-data-v1 on 26 May 2026
Checked data held on this site (government responses, progress updates, independent evidence)
External sources searched: hansard.parliament.uk
This recommendation asks for cultural or behavioural change, which is difficult to verify from published sources alone. The evidence above reflects policy commitments rather than measured outcomes.
Jurisdiction
UK-wide
Response
Accepted
Accepted Home Office
22 Jun 2004

The Home Secretary made a statement to Parliament on 22 June 2004, the day the Bichard Inquiry Report was published, accepting all 31 recommendations in full. The government stated it was "in principle, accepting Sir Michael's main recommendations and will act on them immediately." Implementation led to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 and the creation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (now the Disclosure and Barring Service). By February 2007, 21 of the 31 recommendations had been fully or substantially completed. See Hansard, 22 June 2004.

Read Full Response
Note: Government responded with a single statement accepting all 31 recommendations. Individual per-recommendation responses were not published separately.
Progress Timeline
Home Office states: Official Report
08 Nov 2006

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 received Royal Assent. The Act implemented other robust identity verification methods but did not adopt fingerprints as a general means of verifying identity for DBS checks.

Source
Source
Inquiry Bichard Inquiry
Report The Bichard Inquiry Report 22 Jun 2004
View Source
Responsible Bodies
Home Office Primary
Themes & Tags
Police Vetting Inconsistencies Vetting Identity Verification
Recommendation age 21.9 yrs
Last formal update 7144 days ago