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Registration of Criminals
Act 1949

2020 REVISED EDITION

This revised edition incorporates all amendments up to and including 1 December 2021 and comes into operation on 31 December 2021

An Act to provide for the registration of criminals.

[29 June 1949]

PART 1

PRELIMINARY

[45/2002]

Short title

1. This Act is the Registration of Criminals Act 1949.

Interpretation

2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires —

“authorised officer” means —

(a)	a police officer;
(b)	an officer of customs of the Singapore Customs in any case concerning an offence or alleged offence against any law or provision of law which is the function of the Singapore Customs to enforce;
(c)	an immigration officer;
(ca)	a forensic specialist acting in accordance with an authorisation under section 65B(1) of the Police Force Act 2004 to exercise a power under this Act;
(d)	an officer of any law enforcement agency in any case concerning an offence or alleged offence against any law or provision of law which it is the function of that agency to enforce; and
(e)	any other person who is duly appointed in writing by the Commissioner of Police as an authorised officer for the purposes of this Act or any provision of this Act;

“crime” means any offence included for the time being in the First or Second Schedule;

“DNA” means deoxyribonucleic acid;

“DNA database” means the database maintained under section 13F;

“DNA information” means genetic information derived from the forensic DNA analysis of a body sample;

“finger impression” includes palmar impressions, hand prints, finger prints, foot prints or toe prints;

“forensic procedure”, in relation to an individual, includes doing one or all of the following in relation to the individual:

(a)	taking an impression or cast of a wound from the external parts of the individual’s body other than the parts referred to in section 13A(3);
(b)	the taking of physical measurements (whether or not involving marking) for biomechanical analysis of an external part of the body other than the parts referred to in section 13A(3);
(c)	removing any article that the individual is wearing, and searching any article so removed;
(d)	removing a relevant thing attached physically to those external parts of the individual’s body or taking a sample of that relevant thing;
(e)	photographing any relevant thing in the position it is found on the external parts of the individual’s body, or in the individual’s mouth;

“forensic specialist” means an individual who is appointed under section 65A of the Police Force Act 2004 as a forensic specialist;

“law enforcement agency” means any body or organisation which is prescribed by the Minister to be a law enforcement agency for the purposes of this Act;

“other particulars”, in relation to a person, means any particulars, information or description of that person, other than his or her registrable particulars, that may be relevant or useful in the identification of that person;

“photograph”, in relation to a person, includes the photograph of any distinguishing feature or mark on the body of that person;

“principal registration area” means Singapore and Malaysia;

“register” means the register of criminals maintained in accordance with section 4;

“registrable particulars” means the particulars of any conviction, sentence, banishment, expulsion or deportation, and any name, description, photograph, or finger impression of, or document relating to, any person so convicted, sentenced, banished, expelled or deported, as the case may be, and includes particulars of any outstanding offence, whether that offence be a crime or not, taken into consideration in determining and passing sentence on any conviction for a crime;

“Registrar” means the Registrar of Criminals appointed under section 3, and includes an Assistant Registrar of Criminals.

[45/2002; 4/2003; 10/2015]

Appointment of Registrar of Criminals and Assistant Registrars

3.—(1) The President may appoint a Registrar of Criminals and such Assistant Registrars as he or she may consider necessary for the purposes of this Act.

(2) The President may, with the concurrence of the government of Malaysia, appoint an officer in the service of that government to be a Registrar of Criminals or an Assistant Registrar for the purposes of this Act.