Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Police fingerprint system blackout
CIVIL rights activists, court watchers, detectives and MECs are calling on the SA Police Service (SAPS) to keep its finger on the pulse of its Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) following a hard drive failure for several days, stating it could lead to perpetrators being freed and cases being struck from court rolls.
The SAPS confirmed AFIS went dark for seven days last month due to a hard drive failure.
But detectives, who spoke anonymously to Weekend Argus, claimed they were unable to access AFIS for nearly two months and that it posed a threat to court cases where matters could be withdrawn.
AFIS contains information on criminals and is used during bail applications to determine whether accused can be linked to other crimes.
National police spokesperson Colonel Athlenda Mathe confirmed the system suffered a hard drive failure but said it did not affect detectives’ cases.
“The AFIS is operational, and our fingerprint analysts are able to do their work as per usual.
“The AFIS was down for a number of days due to hard drive failure. There was no system collapse, nor did the system crash.
“The AFIS is functioning, and all the functions sourced from that system are available,” Mathe said.
Police said they were not in a position to comment more on how this happened and if it could happen again.
Action Society’s director of community safety, Ian Cameron, said the courts had already seen a backlog of cases and that interrupted police systems posed a threat.
”It does affect our court cases, and already there is a massive backlog, and court rolls are so full already, and often, cases are struck off the court roll because of technical issues because of something like that.”
A police source said: “Fingerprints get scanned in on AFIS, and AFIS then either links you to previous crimes that you committed or are awaiting trial for. The detective then prints an SAP69 at the station, and all that information should be on there if it was working.
“AFIS crashed after a new service provider took over,
“Now criminals are getting bail because there’s no way of getting their previous convictions or any information on them. So the detective can’t oppose bail.
“They are treated first-time offenders.”
In August, Police Oversight and Community Safety MEC Reagen Allen said according to the Department of Community Safety’s Court Watching Brief’s report, 198 cases were withdrawn between April 1 and June 30 as a result of police inefficiencies.
Allen said they called on police to remedy their systems which could affect cases and the victims. It would be concerning if it had affected court matters, as it would mean that justice was delayed and or denied. Victims would suffer secondary trauma, and this could not be allowed, Allen said.
“I urge the SAPS to immediately attend to this matter,” he said.
Linda Jones, a court watcher and activist with the Mitchells Plain Ratepayers Association, said detectives often had to juggle between cases and that interrupted police systems would allow criminals to be released to re-offend.
“In so many instances, offenders are granted bail, and during this time, they re-offend,” she said.