National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS)

About National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS)

• It is a pan-India searchable database of crime and criminal-related fingerprints.
• It is managed bythe Central fingerprint bureau at the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), based in New Delhi.
• It functions as a central information repository by consolidating fingerprint data from all states and Union Territories.
• It enables law enforcement agencies to upload, trace, and retrieve data from the database in real time on a 24×7 basis.
• With the help of this it is possible to locate a person of interest in a matter of minutes and connect that individual’s name to any active warrants, warnings, or information about related criminal conduct stored in other police information reference systems.

Working of NAFIS

• It assigns a unique 10-digit National Fingerprint Number for each criminal, based on biometrics.
• The unique ID will be used for a lifetime of an offender. Different crimes registered under different FIRs will be logged as incidents belonging to the same National Fingerprint Number.
• The first two digits of the ID will be the state code of the state where the criminal is registered, followed by a sequence number.
• The state partition will have IDs belonging to a state. 

Q1) What is the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)?

National Crime Records Bureau was established in 1986 to act as a repository of information on crime and criminals.It comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA), Government of India.It was set up based on the recommendations of the Tandon Committee, the National Police Commission (1977-1981) and the Task Force of the Home Ministry.It is responsible for collecting and analysing crime data as well as serving as a repository of such information to aid investigators in tracing crimes and criminals.

Source: NATIONAL AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (NAFIS)