The fingerprints of some six million people are to be destroyed following the decision to delay the setting up of a central database, home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner has told MPs.

Mounting opposition to the plan, following concerns about security and margins of error, led the minister to cancel the project on Wednesday.
According to one media report, tests on the system revealed one in five fingerprints did not match the person they were supposed to have come from.
The Netherlands includes two fingerprints on microchips in all passports and had planned to set up the central database to help the police indentify criminals.