Dubai to collect fingerprints of all residents to aid in investigations

Somaya Saad, Staff Reporter

Lieutenant Colonel Jassim Muhammad Abdullah, director of the Fingerprints Department in the General Department of Forensics and Criminology, has revealed that the fingerprints of all Dubai citizens and residents, will be collected soon.

Abdullah added that the new system, which is being applied in developed countries, will soon be put into effect in Dubai, explaining that fingerprint registration allows faster and more accurate investigation procedures.

He indicated that these records will also be integrated into a new biometric centre to facilitate a simplified investigation procedure in all criminal evidence databases.

“Fingerprints have an important and pivotal role, as they may be decisive in finding clues to many crimes committed when used by a team of experts working around the clock in of police.

“They also speed up the verification of the perpetrators’ identity and provide evidence to the judicial authorities to achieve justice with high professionalism in criminal cases,” Abdullah added.

“Besides, they enable finding out evidences which contributes in supporting the efforts to detect crimes, in addition to providing evidences to the Public Prosecution and judicial authorities,” said Abdullah.

Abdullah also explained the necessity of having a fingerprint database, pointing out that fingerprints can be taken either by an electronic or manual scanning device using ink and paper, and then a scanner is used to save the data electronically in the appropriate manner.