MPs have reacted furiously to the rumour that the data bank to store millions of Dutch citizens’ fingerprints is to be built by a ‘commercial French company’, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday.

‘This is a question of national security and therefore national government,’ Socialist MP Ronald van Raak told the paper.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert of the VVD Liberals said having a foreign company manage the data base would be very odd considering the security service warns in its annual report that such data banks are an espionage target.
The data bank, which will be accessed by the police, will store the fingerprints of every Dutch national who applies for a new biometric passport.
Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin is alleged to have let the details slip during a debate on the security service’s annual report. But a spokesman for the minister told the paper he had been misunderstood.