Finland's new National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero wants police to have access to a controversial national fingerprint database being planned for passport identification purposes.
In an interview with the newspaper Aamulehti, Paatero said that the planned fingerprint database would be an excellent investigative tool for the police.
Current plans call for all passport applicants to be fingerprinted no later than as of next June. If implemented, this means in practice that the fingerprints of nearly all Finnish adults will be on record within the next ten years.
An Interior Ministry task force is in charge of formulating the details of the new database. Plans already do include its use in the investigation of serious criminal offences and in the identification deceased persons and disaster victims.
Finland's Data Protection Ombudsman Reijo Aarnio is opposed to the establishment of the fingerprint database. He says that potential mistakes and misuse could cause serious problems for citizens. Aarnio believes that criminals will still be able to mislead the police by leaving fake prints at the scenes of crimes.
A final decision on setting up the fingerprint database will be taken by Parliament.
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