Senior lawyers have said plans to create a national fingerprint database in the Caribbean island of Antigua could compromise privacy norms.The calls follow an announcement by Minister of Information Melford Nicholas last week that during electoral registration, fingerprints could be digitised and archived for use by other state agencies.He had said a system created for the country's ePassports could be adapted for the task.However, Barbados-based attorney, political activist and founder of the Clement Payne Movement, Dr David Commissiong has told local media, “Fingerprints are captured for persons who run afoul of the law. I can see no compelling reason as to why that needs to be extended across the entire population.”Meanwhile, United States (US) based attorney Ralph Bowen told the Antigua Observer that the policy was “alarming”, declaring that the government has yet to provide a “sufficient argument or justification” for implementing it, and that it lacks “an overarching reason or rationale”.Bowen said that while “it would be ideal if the police had access to a databank”, every member of the public had “individual protectable constitutional rights that prevent that level of invasion into our privacy and personal space”.Local attorney Ralph Francis dismissed the notion that a civil Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and a corresponding databank of fingerprints would assist in fighting crime.”I've been trying to think of how many cases that have gone through the court system in the last 30 years where fingerprints were the major issueߪ. And the majority of persons at the High Court for these things they don't have voters' IDs and other IDs with prints ߪ give me another excuse,” he said.

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