The arrest on Aug. 7 of two suspects in the murder of former Hsinhu Elementary School teacher Wu Hsiao-hui (
That it took the police eight years to make a breakthrough in the case suggests that people's human rights might actually be better protected if there was a fingerprint database, some law enforcement officials and lawmakers said.
The two suspects were linked to the case after the police received a tip last month that one of them, Huang Chi-feng (
Huang was finally arrested after fingerprints, palmprints and blood samples he provided to the police in relation to a rape case last October were matched with prints found on Wu's car at the crime scene.
Cheng Ching-sung (鄭清松), commissioner of the National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB), said that it had taken the police eight years to make a breakthrough in Wu's case because very little evidence had been discovered at the crime scene and there were no witnesses. The police didn't even know how many suspects they were looking for, Cheng said.
"We tried to match the fingerprints we collected in our databank. However, it came up with nothing," Cheng said. "As for the palmprint, the police could not analyze it properly because they don't have the equipment to do it."
Police said that Huang identified his friend Wang Yu-chuan (
The establishment of a national fingerprint databank was first raised in a 1997 amendment to the Household Registration Law (戶籍法).
The amendment required everyone over the age of 14 to provide their fingerprints when issued with photo identification cards.
However, human-rights groups lobbied against the proposal and it was rejected.
The CIB already has a fingerprint database compiled from Ministry of National Defense records and police records of suspects when they are arrested, Cheng said.
"Military personnel are required to give fingerprint information when they join the armed forces. For security purposes, the CIB also has access to this information," Cheng said.
However, the database is far from comprehensive and Cheng said there were, in particular, two kinds of people whose fingerprints would not have been recorded.
"First, when the suspect is a female, with no military background or a criminal record, or second, when the suspect is a male but hasn't served his compulsory military service and has no criminal record," Cheng said.
While all men in Taiwan over the age of 18 are required to complete compulsory military service, there are certain exemptions, such as for disability or obesity.
Cheng said that if the police hadn't received the tip and been able to use the fingerprint, palmprint and blood sample he provided to police in an unrelated case, Wu's murder would have remained unsolved.
"I think this is a good example of how important a national fingerprint databank is," Cheng said.
Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭), director of the Continuing Education and Training Center at the Central Police University, also believes a national fingerprint database would help the police investigate serious crimes.
She said protecting people's privacy should not be a problem if the database is well regulated.
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