Two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators urged the Council of Grand Justices yesterday to declare a fingerprinting provision in the Household Registration Law (戶籍法) unconstitutional.
Legislators Gao Jyh-peng (
Gao claims that the article was introduced without sufficient discussion in a 1996 amendment to the law, following several high-profile criminal cases which prompted the administrative and legislative branches to believe that fingerprinting would be helpful to criminal investigations.
According to Tsai, the article is potentially harmful to basic human rights because it does not specify the purpose of collecting the fingerprints or provide the necessary protection for the fingerprint files.
If the article is declared unconstitutional, it will enable the country and its people to rethink the issue of human rights protection, Tsai said.
Controversy began when the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) decided early this year to have people fingerprinted in accordance with the law when they apply for new national identification cards, originally set to be issued from July 1.
The policy was challenged by local human rights groups, with critics expressing concern that the fingerprint files could be leaked because of the government's failure to provide proper protection for the data. That prompted the DPP to request a constitutional interpretation on May 30.
The Council of Grand Justices on June 10 ordered a moratorium on the fingerprinting policy until an interpretation is released on the case.
Attending yesterday's hearing as a representative of the administrative branch, Vice Interior Minister Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) said the government should seek to resolve problems rather than giving up the fingerprinting policy just because there is a possibility that fingerprint data could be leaked.
Chien said fingerprinting is a method of identification and that the fingerprint database can be of great use if an efficient monitoring system is established.
Chien pointed out that national identification cards have not been replaced since 1986 and that counterfeit-proof functions are also insufficient in the existing identification cards.
As a result of the moratorium on the fingerprinting policy, Chien said, the government was forced to postpone the renewal of the identification cards, which he said has hampered the government's efforts against identification card counterfeiting and seriously undermined the public interest.
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