recently, the govt introduced and passed the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill within the Lok Sabha, seeking to switch the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 which regulates how the police can gather data from convicted or suspected criminals. The Bill exemplifies the present trend to pass laws that are crammed with ambiguity and lack safeguards. It also reflects a desire to expand the facility of the govt. to interfere with the lives of citizens. The Bill was passed, the kind of information collected by the police would shift dramatically, from basic fingerprint and footprint impressions to a variety of other samples, including iris and retina scans, behavioural attributes, and “biological samples”. The National Crime Records Bureau would hold the collected data for 75 yea...
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