National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) Director Ish Kumar on Thursday requested the government to provide limited access to Aadhaar database, which would help the investigating agencies in conducting probe into inter-State criminals more effectively and timely with the help of fingerprint.
He said limited access to Aadhaar database is need of the hour as 80 to 85% of the criminals every year are first-time offenders with no record with the police.
“If the government provides us Aadhaar database, the local police can tally the collected fingerprint and nab the accused,” he said.
Similarly, more than 40,000 unidentified dead bodies are recovered by the police every year and with access to Aadhaar, these could be identified and handed over to their relatives.
Age-old system
Speaking at the 19th All India Conference of Directors of Finger Print Bureaux here, Mr. Kumar emphasised the need for National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS).
He said the current Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) which was developed in 1992, has only 11.5 lakh fingerprint database, while all the States have about 50 lakh finger print database.
“The AFIS has limited capacity and is outdated now. So we have proposed for a NAFIS that can be linked to 850-odd police district headquarters and commissionerates from where a search query could be sent to the National Database,” he said, adding that the FBI has 50-million fingerprint database.
In the second phase, the NCRB would stretch their arms to all the 15,600-odd police stations across the country so that a police constable on patrolling duty, or at a naaka can send the query and check the incidents of any suspect.
“Once the database is ready, there would be a need for Artificial Intelligence in data analytic tools by which we can analyse the data and see whether an offender has a criminal record in other states too,” the NCRB director said.
Amendment in Act
Amendment in Identification of Prisoners Act 1920 is also required to include other biometrics as face, palm and voice which are the need of the hour, he said. “There is also need to do away with the clause of one year rigorous imprisonment in the identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 and the NCRB has already sent the proposal to MHA,” he said.
Can reach only 1 % cases
He said out of 50 lakh cases registered each year in the country, the fingerprint experts are able to visit only around 55,000 scenes of crime, which is just 1% of all cases and is grossly inadequate.
“The reason is many states do not have adequate fingerprint cadre strength nor do they have the proper equipment,” he said.
Mr. Kumar requested the Ministry of Home Affairs to modernise all the State Finger Print Bureaus so that experts could at least visit 10% of the scenes of crime.
