The government could be seeking new powers for the police to fingerprint people who break parking rules or drop litter.

A consultation paper is today published on a review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which sets the boundaries for most police powers, though it’s been subject to a lot of amendments and revisions since then. Currently fingerprints can be taken compulsarily only from those suspected of recordable offences. The document states (see p11):

The absence of the ability to take fingerprints etc in relation to all offences may be considered to undermine the value and purpose of having the ability to confirm or disprove identification and, importantly, to make checks on a searchable database aimed at detecting existing and future offending and protecting the public.

We all want to cut crime, but these days almost all offences are recordable, and only the most minor still count as non-recordable - mostly littering, parking and the like. Do the police need to check litterers against a national database? If the inability to take fingerprints for specific offences is causing problems, those offences could be made “recordable” so that prints can be demanded.

The onus must be on police and the government to show these powers are necessary. Too often the debate is set so that those opposed to extension of powers have to prove why they aren’t needed. Let us hope that doesn’t happen here.