Camille: Fingerprinting not just about crime

While the crime situation is not motivating factor for the idea of fingerprinting all persons in Trinidad and Tobago, Government recognises that the fingerprinting of persons would be able to assist in dealing with the crime wave.

So said Minister in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Camille Robinson-Regis yesterday as she sought to elaborate on the plan to fingerprint all persons in Trinidad and Tobago. She stressed that the idea, which was “still in its infancy,”  was aimed at moving the whole registration system to developed country status. But she noted that it could also help in addressing the crime problem, since it would provide a ready data-base to the Ministry of National Security. She said criminal deportees for instance, just returned to the society and there was currently no record-keeping on who they were and where they were. Asked whether such an invasion of privacy would require legislation which must be passed by a special majority, Robinson-Regis stated that the Ministry had not yet looked at this issue.

She said the fingerprinting exercise would probably operate on the same basis as the legislation on DNA testing, which requires the authorities to seek the permission of persons before taking a sample. Robinson-Regis said the fingerprinting scheme would part of a wider system. She cited the Ministry’s  population registration system with its automated civil registry which recorded all events like births, deaths, marriages and muslim divorces. She added that this project would enable Government to start the national health insurance. It would also link into the National Security Ministry in terms of their immigration records in particular. “Having spoken to the Ministry of National Security, I  recognised that if we wanted to move forward in addition to having the population registered, we can fingerprint people so that when you pull up their records you would get all the relevant information - birth, marriage, health, etc”.

Robinson-Regis stated that the details were now being worked out with the Ministry of National Security. She said this system already existed in Canada and several of the other developed countries. “We decided that in circumstances where we are already moving towards the automation, it would be a good opportunity to do the fingerprinting at the same time,” she said, adding that the concept was still in its infancy. She said Government was also puttng in place an automated land registry which would identify every parcel of land and her Ministry was working with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Town and Country Planning Division in this regard. It was also doing a companies’ registry, she said.