The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, 6 April, passed the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022, which would enable investigating officers to collect the biometric details of prisoners.
The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on Monday, 4 April.
Speaking in Rajya Sabha, Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Bill will improve investigation procedures by utilising technology, PTI reported.
Earlier, Shah had moved the Bill for consideration and passing in Rajya Sabha.
"Our law is bachha (nothing) in terms of strictness as compared to other nations. There are more stringent laws in countries like South Africa, UK, Australia, Canada, US which is why their conviction rate is better," the home minister said.
The Bill, introduced in the lower house on 28 March, seeks to replace the Prisoners Act 1920.
What the Bill Proposes
While the Prisoners Act authorises the collection of certain identifiable information about specified persons (such as convicts for purposes of investigation of a crime), the current Bill looks to expand the ambit of both the information (identification markers) to be collected, as well as the persons from whom this information can be extracted.
It proposes to allow the police and prison authorities to collect, store and analyse physical and biological samples, including retina and iris scans of not only convicts, but also of those that police consider suspects of a crime.
The Bill also authorises the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to collect, store, and preserve these details for 75 years.
Why It Is Concerning
The Bill seeks legal sanctions to "measure" a convict's biometrics. Following the introduction of the Bill, legal experts and activists had voiced a slew of privacy-related concerns about its provisions. These concerns largely pertain to the following aspects of the Bill:
Expansion of identification characteristics
Expansion of the categories of people the data will be gathered from
Collection and storage of this information with the NCRB
(With inputs from PTI.)
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