If the Police are requesting a fingerprint when you apply for a Police Certificate it is in breach of the Police Force Ordinance Cap 18.01 and your constitutional rights.
When you provide a finger print it can leave a sweat deposit and therefore it is possible to obtain a person’s DNA from that sweat deposit. If the sweat was classed as fluid from a tissue then it should be classed as an intimate sample and therefore a Court order and written consent would be required but then it can only be taken from a person in police detention.
People come to our shores and automatically assume that we all have no sense and they can do as they like to us without any fear of us defending ourselves. That’s because we have always been an accommodating and welcoming set of people, but don’t take our kindness for weakness and this is exactly what Commissioner James Smith is doing to us by asking ALL of us to give him our fingerprints.
Our biometric rights are protected in the constitution of the TCI, and if the Police think that we will just give up our constitutional rights without it being lawful, they are wrong and all general applicants for Police Records who has NEVER been convicted of an offence should refuse to give their fingerprints unless and until Commissioner James Smith can show you the law which overrides your constitutional rights. The Rehabilitation of Offenders “Amendment” Ordinance 2017 does not give the Police the powers to request fingerprints for general applicants for Police Records. This law ONLY give the Police the powers to request fingerprints FROM applicants who are rehabilitated (convicted) offenders who have not been re-convicted
The storing of fingerprints in a database violates the right to privacy enshrined in s9 of our constitution and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I call on the Human Rights Commissioner to advise the Police to cease the implementation of the taking of fingerprints from general applicants as to do so would be a violation of our Human Rights.
