The OECD working party on information security and privacy have published their report about biometrics. It's 66 pages and not bedtime reading unless you suffer from insomnia or have a really serious interest in biometrics and their possible implications. But it is worth pointing to their conclusion:

"The extent to which we are willing to incorporate statutory and policy and technological controls into these
systems and technologies will determine the extent to which they will improve our quality of life; providing convenience and security or conversely, the extent to which they threaten our liberty and freedom via actual or potential surveillance and control."

In other words, as with the deployment of all complex technologies, the devil is in the detail and it is time policy makers, like David Blunkett for example, started getting real about the detail.