A NEW EU-funded “biometric policing plan” for Greece violates privacy standards and will increase discrimination, rights groups said today.

The project, by which police will use hand-held devices to gather biometric information from people “on a vast scale” and cross-check it against police, immigration and private-sector databases, is billed as a measure to control immigration.

But Human Rights Watch and internet privacy campaigners Homo Digitalis said it would “most likely facilitate and increase the unlawful practice of racial profiling” across Greece, noting that “in recent years, Greek police have carried out abusive, and often discriminatory, stops and searches of migrants and other marginalised populations.”