(cont. from § 7) Biometrics in crime fighting (cont. JuU18)
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerned the use of biometrics, such as DNA analysis, fingerprints, and facial comparisons, in crime fighting. SD argued that the overrepresentation of foreign backgrounds in cases of rape justifies the police being allowed to use automated biometrics in the Swedish Migration Agency's registers to find and convict perpetrators 1 2. V argued that the focus on the Swedish Migration Agency's registers indicates structural racism and that the focus should instead be on apprehending all perpetrators, including those with a Swedish background 3 4. L advocated for expanded use of biometrics and DNA-based genealogy to provide the police with necessary tools 5. MP welcomed modernized regulation but opposed automated comparisons in the Swedish Migration Agency's registers as it is considered to violate personal integrity 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Pontus Andersson Garpvall (SD)
Mr. Speaker! Two-thirds of the number of convicted rapists during the 2000s had a foreign background. At the same time, the figures today show that approximately 20 percent of the population was born abroad. This means that the overrepresentation in rape is very large regarding persons with a foreign background.
When Brå investigated the issue, it was seen that in only 13 percent of the cases, a suspected perpetrator was found. Now we want to be able to use automated facial and fingerprint comparison with the Swedish Migration Agency's registers. But then Vänsterpartiet says no in its reservation.
Why does the Left Party not want to make it easier for our law enforcement agencies to find and convict perpetrators of aggravated rape?
Gudrun Nordborg (V)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you for the question, Pontus Andersson Garpvall!
There are different opinions about what proportion of our perpetrators have a foreign background. There has been an overrepresentation for a long time; I will not deny that. But I think it is quite terrible when one focuses only on one group among very many others. In the dark figures, there is probably an even greater dominance of classically Swedish perpetrators; this has been argued for in research and theories for a long time.
I do not know if we will find these men just in the Swedish Migration Agency's registers. It is those who have come as immigrants and who are dependent on permits and contacts with the Swedish Migration Agency who are in that register. Some are also born here and are Swedish citizens. But I am not against that people are prosecuted for various crimes, including rape.
Pontus Andersson Garpvall (SD)
Mr. Speaker! Thanks to Gudrun Nordborg for the answer to my question!
My wife previously worked at the gynecological emergency clinic in Helsingborg. Some weeks, they could get an average of one woman a day who had been subjected to rape. One weekend, it was a total of five women.
When such a case occurs, the police come to the gynecological emergency room to collect biometric data in a so-called tracking kit. If the person who has committed the act has not been punished before, the police cannot find the perpetrator in their registers. But with the proposals in the Sweden Democrats' reservation 4, these biometric data shall be able to be used to search in genealogy registers.
As it stands, approximately 13 percent of perpetrators are found. Our proposal would enable the police to find more perpetrators, but the Left Party says no to that. Why? Why does one not, as a feminist party, want to make it easier for law enforcement agencies to find and convict more rapists?
Gudrun Nordborg (V)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, member, for the question regarding the supplement!
I have personally followed several rape victims. I know how the police work. I know that there are large dark figures. The important thing is that we catch a perpetrator and not that we solely focus on those who do not have a Swedish background. The tendency to focus on the Swedish Migration Agency's registers is a sign that we have a structural racism, where we suspect everyone in the registers of being, if not rapists, at least potential criminals. It is an argument that SD unfortunately drives hard, and it leads to one of the divides we have in society.
I naturally want that people try to reach all those who have committed crimes, including rape. It should be about both those who have a classic Swedish background and those who are in the smaller group who have an immigrant background.
This is, however, not the only path. What dominates now in rape cases is that the victim and the perpetrator are known to each other. The one who is the victim very often knows who the perpetrator is and can identify this person. Then it is a matter of getting victims to dare and manage to report and to dare to believe that they can manage the encounter with the justice system.
Within the justice system, one has become more responsive regarding issues of treatment and so on. This, too, is therefore becoming better. The prosecutors and the police are now more skilled in investigative activities, including that which concerns issues of treatment, which I naturally appreciate very much.
Martin Melin (L)
Mr. Speaker! The police have the knowledge, the police have the capability, and the police have the will. The only thing that is missing is the legal right to do so. What I am talking about is to develop and use biometrics much more in crime fighting.
I sat in the USA in the summer of 1995 and watched the trial of O.J. Simpson on TV. There, they presented and talked about something called DNA. There probably weren't many of us who knew what it was back then and there, but today most people know what DNA is. The development regarding the ability to find and trace DNA is moving forward at a rapid pace. Many have been caught after leaving DNA traces at a crime scene.
Now I come to what we are debating. For the police to be able to apprehend a perpetrator, it is not enough to just have DNA; one must also have something to match the DNA trace with. The more people there are to compare the trace with, the greater the chance of getting a hit.
That is why it is good that a bill is finally being put forward regarding when, how, and from whom a DNA test may be taken. It will become clearer and easier to interpret the new law. The person who is reasonably suspected of a crime where there is imprisonment in the range of penalties shall have DNA taken. The person who is detained, remanded in custody, or admitted to a facility shall have DNA taken. The DNA test is stored in the so-called biometric register, and then one can compare traces from future crime scenes with the register.
Mr. Speaker! Thanks to the fact that more and more places in society are now under camera surveillance, the police often receive images and filmed material from crime scenes, escape routes, and other places where perpetrators have stayed. Not infrequently, there are good images of the perpetrators, and there is also good technology today to be able to make comparisons of the images and films of the perpetrators through so-called automated facial comparison.
The problem is that the selection to make these comparisons with is limited. It is a problem today, and this is incomprehensible to me. You cannot give the police one tool, to be allowed to use cameras for surveillance, and then not give them the other tool, that is to say, to have something to compare the images with!
Today, it usually works so that the filmed material is used to compare with a known perpetrator, that is, as evidence. It would have been much better if one could effectively use the images already in the investigation stage and make comparisons against different registers to be able to track who the person in the image is. Who is the perpetrator?
The images that the police can make comparisons with today are very few. It is essentially only persons who are previously convicted and previously suspected of crimes that one can compare the images from crime scenes with.
This is frustrating for the police officers who investigate serious crimes such as explosions, shootings, extortion, and rape. They have good pictures of the perpetrators, but they have nothing to compare them with.
But now, with the new bill we are debating here today, the police will at least get a new register to be able to make comparisons against, namely the Swedish Migration Agency's register. This applies to both fingerprints and photographs. This is something that police officers who work with image analysis have requested.
I hope that one – whoever "one" is, for I do not know – also solves the technical side so that the police can also access and make comparisons against the driving license register. From what I understand, the government is currently working on looking into if and how one can also use the passport register to make comparisons. That would mean very many more millions of people to compare images from crime scenes with. The question is: Why has this not been done earlier?
Finally, Mr. Speaker: It is pleasing that the government is now giving the police the opportunity to use DNA-based genealogical research in criminal investigations. It has proven to be a good and functioning tool and also a legally secure one when used with care and in a correct manner.
In summary, I, and I know many police officers who agree with me, am pleased with the changes that are now occurring in the various laws governing how, when, and where the police may use biometrics in crime fighting.
Ulrika Westerlund (MP)
Mr. Speaker! Difficulties in being able to correctly identify persons today create major problems for law enforcement authorities and hinder prosecution. The difficulties also enable a sharply increasing handling of false personal data which is used, among other things, in fraud – which also finances both gang crime and extremist networks. There are therefore good reasons to give law enforcement authorities the opportunity for increased recording and use of, among other things, DNA, fingerprints and facial images. Miljöpartiet also considers this.
That was why, during our time in government, we commissioned the investigation whose proposals now form the basis for the government's proposal. Our intention was to review the conditions for using biometrics as a tool in crime fighting so that more crimes can be solved. We therefore welcome that the government is now putting forward a proposal for more coherent and purposeful legislation. With a more modernized regulation, biometric data can be used more effectively in crime investigations. At the same time, we can observe that there are certain complex ethical and privacy-sensitive aspects of the government's proposal.
Mr. Speaker! Taking biometric samples and processing biometric data always involves a significant infringement of personal privacy. According to Swedish constitutional law and EU law, such intrusive measures as taking DNA, fingerprints, or similar may only occur when they can be considered necessary and proportionate in relation to the purpose.
In the bill that we are now debating, we consider that the government has, in large parts, made a reasonable balance between the need for an expanded use of biometric data and the protection of personal privacy. Certain parts of the government's proposal are, however, very far-reaching. This applies particularly to the proposal that the police shall be allowed to perform automated facial and fingerprint comparisons in the Swedish Migration Agency's registers of fingerprints and photographs.
In the investigation, it was proposed that the police should be allowed to perform biometric comparisons with both the passport register and the Swedish Migration Agency's register. In the bill, the government has chosen to retain the proposal that the police shall be granted access to the Swedish Migration Agency's register.
It is good that the government has excluded the proposal that passport registers should be able to be used to make biometric comparisons. Just as several referral bodies have pointed out, including the JO and the Institute for Human Rights, such a regulation would not have been compatible with Swedish constitutional law and EU law.
Miljöpartiet, on the other hand, questions why the government excludes the passport register and not the Swedish Migration Agency's register, since in both cases it concerns registers that are not maintained for crime-fighting purposes and where the individuals concerned have not consented to their DNA being used by the police. Even though searches in the Swedish Migration Agency's register do not hit as many people as searches in the passport register, it concerns privacy-sensitive searches in a register of a large number of people who are neither convicted nor suspected of crimes. In our opinion, the police's access to the passport register and the Swedish Migration Agency's register should be regulated in the same way.
The government states that the police shall only be allowed to search the Swedish Migration Agency's registers in cases of certain serious crimes and with special restrictiveness. However, the use of biometric information always entails an infringement of personal privacy, and a balancing act must therefore always be made between the need for effective crime fighting and the individual's right to protection of their personal privacy.
In this context, it can be noted that gang crime and other serious crime constitute a relatively small proportion of total crime and that the circle of persons suspected of serious crime, particularly gang-related such crime, is small. At the same time, the government's proposal to make the Swedish Migration Agency's registers accessible to the police can be expected to affect a significantly larger circle than these. The Green Party (MP) is therefore skeptical as to whether the need for effective crime fighting in just this part really outweighs the individual's right to protection for fundamental civil and political rights.
It is also already possible today to use the Swedish Migration Agency's fingerprint register for biometric comparisons for criminal investigation purposes. Such searches are carried out after the Swedish Migration Agency has made a decision in the individual case. We believe that this regulation is sufficient and therefore oppose the government's proposal to give the police permission to perform automated facial and fingerprint comparisons in the Swedish Migration Agency's registers of fingerprints and photographs.
With this said, I move for approval of the same reservation as the Left Party, our joint reservation 1.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.