Difference between revisions of "Identity Checks"

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=Background=
 
=Background=
 
May police demand that a citizen produce identification upon demand, even though the police has no cause to believe a crime has been committed or is afoot?  In some countries, police have this right.  
 
May police demand that a citizen produce identification upon demand, even though the police has no cause to believe a crime has been committed or is afoot?  In some countries, police have this right.  
Courts will often state that the invasion of privacy is so small when an officer demands identification that no privacy rights are triggered at all. The law in this area continues to evolve as governments develop extensive identification requirements for their citizens.  
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Courts will often state that the invasion of privacy is so small when an officer demands identification that no privacy rights are triggered at all. The law in this area continues to evolve as governments develop extensive identification requirements for their citizens.
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While identity checks are legal in many countries, their validity is tainted by the widespread use of racial profiling. Any identification stop based on race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.<ref>Article 2, [[International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]]</ref>
  
 
=County Specific Applications=
 
=County Specific Applications=

Revision as of 22:35, 8 November 2010

Background

May police demand that a citizen produce identification upon demand, even though the police has no cause to believe a crime has been committed or is afoot? In some countries, police have this right. Courts will often state that the invasion of privacy is so small when an officer demands identification that no privacy rights are triggered at all. The law in this area continues to evolve as governments develop extensive identification requirements for their citizens.

While identity checks are legal in many countries, their validity is tainted by the widespread use of racial profiling. Any identification stop based on race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.[1]

County Specific Applications

France

French Criminal Procedure Code 78-2 permits judicial police officers and their agents to ask any person to jistify their identity by any means where one or more plausible reasons exist to suspect:

  • that the person has committed or attempted to commit an offence;
  • or that the person is preparing to commit a crime or a misdemeanor;
  • or that the person is able to give information useful for an enquiry into a felony or misdemeanor;
  • or the person is the object of inquiries ordered [by] a judicial authority

Furthermore, French Criminal Procedure Code 78-3 an individual who refuses to identify themselves may be held by the police until their identity can be ascertained. Critics of the identify checks allege that identity checks are used by French Police to harass and intimidate minorities in the [2].

A study by the French newspaper Le Monde concluded that Arab and Black men had a 7.8x chance higher than Whites when it came to be arbitrarily stopped and asked for their identity card. [3] Researchers spent several months observing and counting French officers conducting identity stops at Paris's Gare du Norde and Chatelet-les Halles train stations.

Germany

Spain

United States

In Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004) [4], the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that neither the fourth nor the fifth amendment prohibited a state from requiring an individual to identify themself by name during a stops and frisks.



See Rights of the Accused

Notes