The Cayman Islands Immigration
Department plans to start the process of fingerprinting foreign workers in
January, according to enforcement officials who spoke at a public meeting last
week in West Bay.
That new deadline has been pushed
back a bit. Immigration officials initially said they anticipated starting the
process in the last quarter of this year.
Assistant Chief Immigration Officer
Gary Wong told a crowd of about 50 people gathered at Sir John A. Cumber
Primary School Tuesday night that only work permit holders would be required to
give prints as a condition of their employment here.
‘This will hopefully be extended to
permanent residents and people who are here on student visas,” Mr. Wong said.
“However, we must bear in mind that these (current) fingerprints will be for
work permit holders.”
According to Mr. Wong, fingerprints
taken by immigration will be kept for a maximum period of seven years – the
same period non-Caymanian workers who do not receive permanent resident status
are allowed to continuously reside in the country.
Immigration officials said the
fingerprinting and biometric ID system would allow for a certain amount of
information sharing between police and immigration officers. Mr. Wong said
immigration officers would also work with police to ensure usable quality fingerprints
would be taken.
Some $900,000 was set aside in the
current government budget to purchase the fingerprinting facilities for the
Immigration Department.
A request for proposal was sent out
last month, seeking bids for the biometric identification system for work
permit holders – the cost of which was not specified in previous government
budget documents.
Although the fingerprinting
proposal elicited general support from those gathered at the meeting on Tuesday
night, some questioned whether it was going far enough.
Local resident Woody DaCosta said
he really didn’t see the point of fingerprinting only work permit holders.
“To me, if you can’t fingerprint
every individual embarking on the Cayman Islands, it’s almost a futile
attempt,” Mr. DaCosta said. “These are criminal elements that change passports,
change appearance….if you don’t have the technology of fingerprinting…you’re
just looking at a passport of a visitor.”
“I would strongly urge you from a
citizen standpoint to make it known to the policy-makers that that is a
necessity (to fingerprint everyone),” he said. “If not, I think it’s wrought
with issues.”
Biometrics
According to bid documents made
public last month, the Cayman Islands government intends to establish a system
that would allow it to biometrically identify work permit holders.
That biometric enrolment – to be
used for the verification of a work permit holder’s identity upon entry or exit
at Cayman’s various ports of call – will be entered into the Immigration
Department’s current records system, according to bid documents seeking
proposals for such a system.
Biometrics go well beyond
fingerprinting to include face recognition, DNA, palm prints, and iris
recognition. The science of biometrics can also be used to identify individuals
based on certain behavioural characteristics such as typing rhythms, gait or
voice recognition.
According to the 75-page request
for proposal, the successful bidder would not only provide the Immigration
Department with the ability to biometrically enrol work permit holders; they
would also be able to upgrade and replace the current fingerprinting system
used by the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service.
A modern Automated Fingerprint
Identification System would allow police to print suspects during police field
operations and integrate those fingerprints with the police mug shot database,
according to the bid documents.
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Perhaps we should tatoo a number on them and make them wear yellow star badges as well. They deserver it!
I wish our RCIP and government would stop using the Cayman Islands to practice their incompetency, ignorance and stupidity. I guess they believe we the people are stupid and don’t know what’s going on.
This dumb decision regarding fingerprinting is totally unacceptable.
Do the politicians and big shots tell RCIP and Big Mac that they are too important or too big to be fingerprinted? Well that’s what it looks like to me.
What sense is it in fingerprinting only foreigners on work permits when we have both foreigners and Caymanianians comitting crimes?
You are making it appear that some of these crimes committed organized or otherwise special privilege is granted to a home grown criminal to have his identity unknown by not having everyone fingerprinted.
For What reason would our RCIP refuses to draft a law that excludes the fingerprinting of any and all possible criminals carying out the crimes?
Comissioner Baines I expected you to act with more intelligence and competence and responsibility. Let alone you should be able to make a more comprehensive decision regarding fingerprinting than this SHAM.
IT MAKES NO SENSE FINGERPRINTING FOREIGN WORKERS ON WORK PERMITS WHEN WE LIVE IN A CRIME RIDDEN SOCIETY WHERE THERE IS A HIGH RATE OF CAYMANIANS AND X-PATS COMITTING CRIMES.
I am a Caymanian, why would I approve of targeting foreign workers on work permits holding them to fingerprinting while CRIME ESCALATES AMONG THE LOCAL COMMUNITY, I MEAN CRIMES COMMITTED BY Caymanians and X-pats ALIKE. This is a very suspicious decision and it only means one thing.
COMMON SENSE ESTABLISHES THAT EVERYONE LIVING AND WORKING ON THIS ISLAND SHOULD BE FINGERPRINTED OR NO ONE AT ALL.
SOMEBODY HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE!
FINGERPRINTING WOULD EXPOSE THEM AND CATCH UT WITH THEIR SINS!
WHY SHOULD EVERYONE ELSE HAVE TO SUFFER AN UNSAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR SOMEONELSE’S SINS?
Izzy,
How would you like to be treated like this in a foreign country that was not your home. being tatooed and wear yellow?
I’m a Caymanian and no one should be treated like you suggested.
As a matter of fact if the RCIP, the UDP the Premier and everyone at the top intended to really fight crime and make our country safe at last; They WOULD FINGERPRINT EVERYONE NOT JUST WORK PERMIT HOLDERS.
There is a flaw in this law and it will backfire on them. Guest workers have rights, I mean interational rights. They are being descriminated against, in that they are being treated different from everyone else. That’s profiling and discrimination. It will not stand up in a court of law.
When you come to live, work, or study in my country (USA) we don’t make you register finger prints with the local police as though you are presumed a felon to be watched. This hateful disregard of human dignity saddens me to no end but we know where this comes from.
What’s with comparing the Holocaust identification system with the fingerprinting?
Izzy that’s a bit rude and inconsiderate of you. These topics are polar-opposites. The people that were murdered because of the holocaust were identified for body counts, experiment statics and knowing where and what they’re classification was. (Gypsy, homosexual, Jewish, Age, Sex, etc.)
Anyways, this system better work regardless of who they decide to use it on. For the illegal immigration issue, I see where it will help. They already have these individuals’ personal information on hand. So then it’s looked at as a easier data base to use.
But on the crime issue, it will be a very lengthy process.
In order to get a large majority of the processing out of the way, it’s a simple matter of doing the fingerprinting when any sort of islands departure takes place. (Planes, boats, cruise ships, w/e)
All I can say is good luck with this.
A similar system is now in place in both the United Kingdom and the United States but for immigration purposes…being able to indentify who is entering and leaving the country.
If such identifying methods turns up suspects of international terrorism, that is another matter altogether.
If this system is intended to be used only for work permit holders, I have to agree with Tiger, that it appears to be discrimminatory and targeted at a particular group of people.
If the Cayman Islands has entered an international security agreement that calls for this measure then every single person entering and leaving the Cayman Islands would need to be fingerprinted; no exceptions.
If it is intended to be used as some sort of crime-fighting tool, again Tiger is completely correct….
It appears to be nothing more than a ‘political’ appeasement to the more discrimminatory elements of the Caymanian citizens who refuse to accept that most of the crimes committed in Cayman are committed by Caymanians, some of them even their very own neighbours and associates.
With the current RCIPS record on preventing and solving the very serious crimes being committed in Cayman, this measure only highlights, at best, the incompetence of the government and police and at worst, smacks of a level of local political corruption never before seen in the Cayman Islands.
I work part-time in your tropical paradise because I love the people & the climate and because I like to use my skills to help others. However, I do not wish to be treated like a criminal, and if I must subject myself to the indignity of fingerprinting, then I’ll choose another more hospitable environment to practice medicine.
Trust me this new policy is not about immigration policy at all, if it is they need to revamp it. Our society is way too small to target our guest workers only on this one. Its not fair and there needs to be cos checks and balances in place.
In my humble opinion, its about covering up the wrongs of those who think they are above the law.
For decades there have been outstanding unsolved mysteries that the governments of the yesteryear,yesterday and today have no earthly intention of solving.
This can only mean one thing. A lot of these crimes will lead right back to some of those elected and in high places.
So are we now going to fingerprint ONLY the guest workers coming into the country seeking work to feed their families?
Lets do some math:
-Caymanianians comitting Crimes
+ X-pats committing crimes
= Caymanianians and Xpats Committing crimes
So how can the RCIP Comissioner Baines and the UDP leader together with Immigration make such a horse manure decision in PRETENDING TO TACKLE CRIME when in fact this recent dumb decision only makes our comunity even less safe. Why? Because we will have the finger print identities of X-pats on file while the Local home grown criminals run wild robbing stealing looting and killing! IT MAKES NO SENSE.
But then again it could serve to FRAME X-PATS FOR CRIMES COMITTED BY LOCAL CCIMINALS IN HIGH PLACES OR ON THE STREET CORNER ’cause you have no fingerprints for anyone else until they are caught in a crime.! Funny some people never get caught, or some one is told to ‘Look the other way’ Wow I bet you wern’t ready for that one!
The criminals that are responsible for the long list of unsolved mysteries haunting these islands "Have never been caught! ITS TIME TO CATCH THEM AND FINGERPRINTING EVERYONE WILL MAKE THIS POSSIBLE! If those responsible for drafting this Police law are unwilling to include everyone in the fingerprinting process, then it only means that they have no intention of stopping the CORRUPTION in and out Government. So the public will remain even more isolated from the RCIP and the X-pats will not assist them in resolving crimes either since they are the major target of this flawed police law. Ah Hah you wern’t ready for that one either! You see, I happen to think about things that every one else forgets, so don’t think for one minute that my eyes are blinded at all. There is no good intention for the people in the implementation of this flawed police law, it is dangerous and will back fire on the RCIP and the courts at some point.
This is a form of NATIONAL PROFILING and could very well develop into racial profiling, depending on who is administering the law at the time of the incident at hand.
I recommend that if the RCIP Comissioner is to convince the general public that he knows what he is doing, Is serious about fighting crime successfully; and if he indeed considers himself a law enforcement professional capable of making rational and comprehensive decisions, then he should FINGERPRINT not just X-pats on Work Permits, but Everyone breathing and living in these islands.
Starting with Mr. Baines Himself, the Premier, the entire UDP,PPM & Independents the Governor all civil service every citizen, new born babes with foot prints as well. That’s what I call a detailed transaction. Not this riff raff proposal handed down to the constituents undermining our intelligence.
No one should be exempt from being fingerprinted. Since NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.
So Mr. Baines, it’s time you go back to the drawing board and sit down at the table again this new law laden of flaws is unacceptable and is a disservice to our society. We expected better of you.