Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Indian Act
Know Your Rights
Criminal Law
Child Protection
Fair Decision Making
The law says that the police can take your fingerprints, photograph you and take other measurements (e.g. size of your foot) if you are charged with an indictable or hybrid offence. If you are not convicted of the offence, you can ask that all of that information be destroyed.
The Identification of Criminals Act allows police to take your fingerprints, photograph you and take other measurements (e.g. the size of your foot) if you are charged with an indictable or a hybrid offence. If you are charged with an offence that is purely a summary conviction offence, police cannot take your fingerprints, photograph or other measurements.
If police release you before you are charged with an offence or if you are arrested and charged but not held in custody, police can require you to come back to be fingerprinted. Information on when you need to come back for fingerprinting should be included in your release document. It is important that you come back as directed or you could be arrested again and charged with another offence.
If in the end you are not convicted of the offence you were charged with, you can ask police to destroy the record of your fingerprints, photograph and any other measurements. In most cases, police will do this. If they will not, you should speak with a lawyer.
