05/05/2022 (Agence Europe) – On Wednesday 4 May, MEPs called for an alternative solution to the collection of fingerprints for the registration of MEPs’ attendance at the European Parliament in the context of the discharge of the general budget of the European Union for the year 2020 (see EUROPE 12945/8). In order to find a solution that does not involve large-scale biometric data processing, MEPs suggest an electronic attendance register system that could be based on MEPs’ badges or mobile phones. This could be accompanied by random checks and human monitoring. “I am pleased that MEPs are speaking out so strongly against this unnecessary and probably illegal biometric fingerprinting. We must not allow large-scale processing of biometric data to become a new normal”, said Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA, Germany). (TM)