POLICE trials of a hand-held electronic fingerprint reader will begin today.
And drivers in Huddersfield can expect to be stopped and checked in the coming weeks.
The West Yorkshire force is one of several asked to pilot the scheme.
Experts hope the device will save massive amounts of police time and money by allowing officers to identify suspects on the roadside without having to take them to the station.
A pilot scheme - called Project Lantern - will begin today in Luton, Bedfordshire. The gadget allows officers to search 6.5 million fingerprints archived on the National Automated Fingerprint System, with the trial aiming to give them a result within five minutes.
The Home Office calculates it could save more than £2.2 million a year.
Fingerprints can only be taken from the public voluntarily because the law will have to be changed before officers can force people to give prints on the street.
Police minister Tony McNulty said:
"The new technology will speed up the time it takes for police to identify individuals at the roadside, enabling them to spend more time on the frontline and reducing any inconvenience for innocent members of the public."
