If in case you have ever been charged with against the law, the police might have your fingerprints and different information on file. This will have severe implications in your skilled profession, any immigration points it’s possible you’ll be coping with, and as a normal matter, your private privateness.
You don’t have a “proper” to have your prints and information destroyed in each case.
As a authorized matter, when someone is charged with a legal offence, the police have a proper to maintain information regarding that particular person. These information might embody, amongst different issues, fingerprints and a document of the offence with which the particular person was charged.
Though this info is commonly private and represents an incursion into the privateness of the accused, the police are legally allowed to take and even maintain these information in lots of circumstances. Nonetheless, this doesn’t imply the police can maintain these information indefinitely in each scenario. The regulation is pretty clear on this level. But many accused individuals don’t know their rights and could also be permitting the police to maintain private information after they can assert their proper to privateness and have these fingerprints and different information destroyed.
If you happen to don’t ask, your information and prints gained’t be expunged.
If in case you have been discovered not responsible of an offence, had your prices withdrawn, stayed, or “dropped” since you entered right into a peace bond, you may possible have your fingerprint information destroyed. It could be as easy a matter as asking that they be destroyed after the suitable time interval has elapsed.
Sadly, it isn’t all the time this straightforward: many accused individuals have their requests to have their police information destroyed improperly and illegally denied by the Toronto Police. This isn’t the ultimate phrase on the matter. If in case you have a superb lawyer, she or he can attraction this determination and re-assert your proper to privateness in your behalf.
The case regulation is beneficial, however not determinative.
The Ontario Courtroom of Attraction has dominated on this difficulty and the state of the present regulation is encouraging. The case of R. v. Dore basically states {that a} stability should be struck between your privateness and the need of the police doing their job. It goes on to strongly counsel that in case your prices have been withdrawn or you’ve been acquitted of these prices, the stability falls in your favour: the police ought to destroy your information upon request. They might refuse to take action, however a superb lawyer educated within the regulation on this difficulty is aware of that this determination can usually be simply overturned upon a correctly crafted attraction.
If in case you have any questions on destruction of fingerprint and different police information, please be happy to name me or any of the skilled legal professionals right here at Robichaud’s and somebody shall be pleased to debate it with you.
Assert your proper to privateness.
Jordan Gold
Scholar-at-Regulation