A human-rights group protested yesterday against the Ministry of the Interior's proposal to require all citizens to submit their forefinger prints to a national database upon receipt of their national identity cards.
However, most government ministries and the representatives of various political parties came out in support of the proposal at a public hearing yesterday.
Around 20 members of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) protested in front of the ministry, saying that the plan to establish a national fingerprint database would infringe on civil rights. They did so as the ministry held a public hearing involving representatives from its constituent departments and legislators from the three main political parties.
"All citizens have the right to withhold their personal information, and the government should not use the law to eliminate that right," the group said in a statement.
"Establishing a fingerprint database will never be the best way to prevent the forgery of identification documents. To reduce the number of fingerprints required just to assuage concerns is ridiculous," the statement said.
The controversy over whether to establish a national database has delayed the introduction of new national ID cards, as a 1997 amendment to the Household Registration Law (戶籍法) requires all citizens over 14 to submit prints of all 10 fingers upon receipt of their ID card.
A ministry draft amendment to the 1997 amendment, replacing the requirement of prints for all 10 fingers with a demand for only the print of the index finger, failed to make it to the review stage during the last legislative session.
The ministry said it proposed the revised amendment because the introduction of new ID cards, due in 1995, is an urgent matter and that the database is to ensure the uniqueness of each ID card and prevent them from being forged.
The ministry's vice minister, Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎), said that the ministry is trying to find a balance between civil rights and the public interest, especially as many legislators favor the database's establishment.
According to Chien, DPP legislative caucus representative Yeh Yi-jin (
Chien emphasized that the ministry would seek to win over the human rights groups and promised that the database would never be used for the purposes of criminal investigations.
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