Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin called for fingerprints and DNA samples to be collected from residents of a single Russian region as part of a pilot program for a possible federal database.
Bastrykin's comments, published in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Wednesday, will likely draw sharp protests from human rights groups, which condemned an earlier proposal by Bastrykin to collect the data nationwide.
Bastrykin told Rossiiskaya Gazeta that a database of fingerprints and DNA samples would serve as a valuable resource for police because it would help them identify bodies and find missing people, especially children and elderly people suffering from memory loss, in addition to catching criminals.
A pilot program in a single region would allow the public to decide whether the database was a good idea, Bastrykin said.
"Let us try to do this as an experiment in any region and let the people say whether it was the right decision," he said.
Early this month, Bastrykin proposed at a meeting of senior prosecutors that fingerprints and DNA samples be collected from all Russians, starting with those in the restive North Caucasus.
Human rights activists condemned the idea as a violation of people's right to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. Among the harshest critics were national ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva and senior State Duma Deputy Viktor Ilyukhin of the Communist Party.