Fingerprints of Finns soon available for police in many countries

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The quarter of a million fingerprints taken in Finland will soon be made more easily accessible to police officials from several other European countries as well. The same applies to the DNA registry kept by the National Bureau of Investigation (Finland's central criminal police), which holds information on just shy of 50,000 people.
      At the same time, the Finnish police authorities will gain more ready access to the corresponding registries of many other countries.
      The aim of the move is to facilitate the solving of serious crimes. Special emphasis is laid on crimes related to terrorism, as is stressed in all police cooperation nowadays.
      The cooperation is related to the so-called Prüm Treaty, waiting to be ratified by Parliament. The Committee for Constitutional Law and the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs are currently preparing their pronouncements on the issue.
     
The member states will not gain direct access to each other's databases. Instead, the data systems from various countries will "discuss" with each other.
      "When certain criteria are met, a country searching for specific information will receive a notification that another country may have additional data related to the matter. Personal details will not be sent, only information that some other country seems to have the same personal identifier details in its registry", explains inspector general of the police Marja Kartila from the Ministry of the Interior.
      "We are not about to set up a joint EU DNA bank."
      In Finland the fingerprint registry is kept by the National Bureau of Investigation.
     
The most interesting items are the so far unidentified fingerprint and DNA samples collected from various crime scenes. Such collections contain some 17,000 fingerprints and just under 9,000 DNA samples.
      After the broader cooperation presumably starts within the next couple of years, and as the registries in other countries may contain personal details of the owners of some of these samples, the chances of certain crimes getting solved will improve.
      "Such registries are powerful tools even on the national level. In Finland, for one, 1,500 crimes were solved last year based on evidence from the DNA registry", says crime laboratory director Kimmo Himberg from the National Bureau of Investigation.
      Some time ago the German Ministry of the Interior presented the results of a joint operation between German and Austrian police officials. Through the cross-referencing of their DNA databases, the two countries managed to determine the identity of the perpetrators in 1,400 crimes committed in Austria and 1,500 crimes committed in Germany.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police DNA register expected to grow strongly (5.10.2004)

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