On Wednesday, Rajya Sabha passed the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill 2022 after being cleared by the Lok Sabha two days ago.
The bill empowers investigating officers to collect biometric, physical, and biological samples of those convicted, arrested, or held in preventive detention.
It gives legal sanction to measure finger impressions, palm-print, footprint impressions, photographs, iris and retina scans, physical and biological samples, and their analyses.
Further, the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill 2022 gives rights to collect behavioral attributes (signatures and handwriting) and examinations per sections 53 and 53(A) of the criminal procedure (including blood, semen, hair samples, swabs, and analyses such as DNA profiling).
Investigating agencies can retain data for 75 years in digital format. However, provisions in the bill allow destroying details in cases ‘arrested persons’ are not previously convicted and released without trial, discharged, or acquitted by the court.
The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill 2022 allows collecting such data from those convicted or arrested, irrespective of the offense. Also, it permits forcible collection of data of those arrested for crimes against women and children or in case of offenses that carry seven years and more of imprisonment.
The Colonial-era Identification of Prisoners Act 1920
Before introducing this bill, India used a colonial-era law (Identification of Prisoners Act 1920). Under this law, investigating agencies can collect only fingerprints, footprint impressions, and photographs.
In addition, it collected data only from those convicted and arrested for offenses punishable with rigorous imprisonment for one year and more. Furthermore, officers ranked as sub-inspector and above can only direct data collection. But the new Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill 2022 allows head constables in police stations and head warders in prisons to order for data collection.
According to the Government, the current law is inadequate, especially in today’s world of technological advancement in crime and law enforcement. Therefore, introducing the new Criminal Procedure (Identification), Bill 2022, will equip law enforcement with modernization and help increase the conviction rate.
Opposition parties raise their concern about greater state surveillance
However, opposition parliamentarians strongly objected to the new law terming it ‘draconian.’ They fear that the bill will lead to greater state surveillance and violation of privacy and fundamental rights of citizens. Hence can muzzle dissenting voices. Moreover, data collection by investigating agencies will less likely be voluntary at the implementation level, like police stations.
Some data security experts feel that a lack of in-built safeguards can lead to potential data breaches, mainly since storing data for decades can result in leakages. Also, deletion of data in case someone is acquitted remains obscure because (by then) data could be in the hands of multiple agencies.
Reference: Business Standard