The Court of Ap­peal has ruled that leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing the de­struc­tion of fin­ger­print im­pres­sions af­ter an ac­cused per­son is ex­on­er­at­ed al­so ap­plies to cit­i­zens who are ar­rest­ed but nev­er charged.

The de­ci­sion was hand­ed down by Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh and Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux and Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, who con­sid­ered an ap­peal from Ke­ston Fe­lix chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of an amend­ment to the Po­lice Ser­vice Act. The amend­ment em­pow­ered the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to re­tain sen­si­tive per­son­al da­ta, in­clud­ing fin­ger­print im­pres­sions.

In Feb­ru­ary 2021, High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed par­tial­ly up­held Fe­lix’s case, re­quir­ing the TTPS to de­stroy mugshots and phys­i­cal mea­sure­ment records of per­sons ac­quit­ted of crim­i­nal of­fences who no longer had pend­ing mat­ters be­fore the courts. How­ev­er, she dis­missed as­pects of his case re­gard­ing fin­ger­print re­ten­tion, prompt­ing Fe­lix’s ap­peal.