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DNA, fingerprints and photos in police custody

Key points

  • In custody or questioning, police can take your photos and fingerprints (called signalisation) and a DNA sample (a mouth swab) if they have plausible reasons to suspect you of an offence.1
  • The decision must be written and reasoned.12
  • Refusing is an offence: 1 year in prison and €15,000.13 Talk to your lawyer before deciding.
  • Your DNA is only kept in the national file (FNAEG) in certain cases, and you can ask the prosecutor to erase it.24
  • For a protest, the list of offences covered includes violence, damage and taking part in a demonstration while armed, but not insulting or resisting arrest.5

This guide complements Police custody. It explains what the law says so you do not have to improvise. It does not tell you to refuse or accept: that is a decision to take with a lawyer.

Not legal advice

These articles will be recodified by order no. 2025-1091 of 19 November 2025 (from 2029) and were amended in 2026. Check the version in force and, if in doubt, ask a lawyer.

Signalisation and sampling: what the law allows

  • Flagrante delicto (article 55-1) and preliminary investigation (article 76-2, with the prosecutor's authorisation): the judicial police officer can take external samples (mouth swab) and identification records (fingerprints or palm prints, photographs) from anyone against whom there are one or more plausible reasons to suspect that they committed or attempted the offence.16
  • The decision is written and reasoned.1
  • Photo and fingerprints can feed police files: the photo, the TAJ (criminal records processing file), the fingerprints, the fingerprint file (FAED).7
  • Without your consent, force is only possible for identity signalisation: if it is the only way to establish who you are, you refuse to prove your identity or give a manifestly inaccurate one, the offence carries at least 3 years, and the prosecutor authorises it in writing. Your lawyer is notified.1

The DNA file (FNAEG)

Situation What happens to the DNA
Plausible reasons to suspect The DNA can be compared with the file, without being kept.2
Serious or consistent evidence that you committed an offence on the list Your profile can be kept in the file, on the decision of the judicial police officer.2
Conviction for an offence on the list The profile is kept.2

The list in article 706-55 includes in particular: intentional violence (222-1 to 222-18, including violence against a person holding public authority), destruction and damage (322-1 to 322-14) and taking part in a demonstration while carrying a weapon (431-10). It does not include insulting or resisting arrest (433-6 and 433-7), unless the facts also amount to an offence on the list.5 (What the law forbids at a protest.)

Refusing: an offence in its own right

  • Refusing the sample or signalisation is punished by 1 year in prison and a €15,000 fine.13
  • Refusing the fingerprints or photos authorised by the prosecutor during an identity verification is punished by 3 months and €3,750.8
  • The Constitutional Council held that this penalty is "not manifestly disproportionate" and recalled that sampling implies neither a declaration nor a presumption of guilt.9

That is why the question "accept or refuse?" is not settled alone in a police station: a refusal can add a prosecution to the one that led to custody.

The TAJ: refusing the photo does not prevent registration

The TAJ (traitement d'antécédents judiciaires, criminal records processing file) is a file shared by the police and the gendarmerie, which replaces the former STIC and JUDEX. It holds the data of people under investigation and of victims. It is separate from the criminal record: you can be in it without any conviction.10 It is also used for administrative inquiries, for example for access to certain jobs.11

  • The TAJ is fed by data collected during investigations (preliminary, flagrante delicto, letters rogatory) for any crime or offence, and for some fifth-class contraventions.12 The article does not tie registration to the photo: the procedure data is enough, so refusing to be photographed does not guarantee you will not be registered.

  • The prosecutor oversees the file. At your request, they can order erasure, rectification or a note, and must answer within 2 months.13 After a final acquittal, the data is erased, unless the prosecutor orders it kept; after a dismissal or a case closed without action, it carries a note (so it can no longer be consulted for administrative inquiries), unless erasure is ordered.13 A refusal can be challenged before the president of the investigating chamber.13

  • What the Constitutional Council said (27 October 2017). The file lists everyone investigated for a crime, an offence or certain fifth-class contraventions. It can hold a photograph suitable for facial recognition, and its data could then be kept from five to forty years, and also be consulted for administrative inquiries. The Council struck down the rule that denied any erasure to people investigated other than those acquitted, or benefiting from a dismissal or a case closed without action, as a disproportionate infringement of privacy.14 Current retention periods are not verified here: ask your lawyer.

  • What the European Court of Human Rights said (18 September 2014). In Brunet v. France, about the STIC file (the TAJ's predecessor), it unanimously held that France violated the right to respect for private life (Article 8). The applicant, whose case had been closed without action after a criminal mediation, had no real possibility of asking for erasure of his data. A twenty-year retention period was, in that case, "assimilable" to indefinite retention.15

Refusing on principle

Some activists refuse signalisation and DNA so as not to contribute to registration, even at the price of a prosecution. It is a deliberate choice, to be made knowingly:

  • The cost is certain: refusal is an offence (1 year and €15,000), added to the alleged facts.13
  • The gain is limited: the TAJ is fed by the procedure, not by the photo alone (see above). You only refuse the photo and fingerprints.
  • Your situation matters: a record, being a minor, a foreign or precarious person do not carry the same risks.

Decide with your lawyer, not in the cell.

Asking for erasure

  • If your profile was kept in the file although you were not convicted (case dropped, acquittal, dismissal), ask the public prosecutor to erase it. They do so on their own initiative or at your request if keeping it "no longer appears necessary".4
  • The prosecutor informs you of the outcome. If it is not erased, you can go to the president of the investigating chamber.4
  • Retention periods are set by decree: they are not detailed here. Ask your lawyer.

What to do in practice

  1. Ask for your lawyer before any sampling (Police custody).
  2. Ask for the written, reasoned decision ordering it.
  3. Note what is taken (photos, fingerprints, DNA) and the time.
  4. After the case, if it is dropped or you are acquitted, send an erasure request by registered letter to the prosecutor.

In one of these situations? arrested or in custody

Sources

Each note points to the source of the information. Laws change: check the date of the source and, if in doubt, ask a lawyer.

  1. Code de procédure pénale, article 55-1 (Légifrance) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, national DNA file (art. 706-54 to 706-56-1-1; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩↩↩

  3. Code de procédure pénale, article 706-56 (Légifrance) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩

  4. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 706-54-1 (erasure from the DNA file; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩

  5. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 706-55 (offences listed for the DNA file; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩

  6. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, preliminary investigation (art. 75 to 78, incl. 76-2; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  7. Service-Public — Garde à vue · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  8. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 78-5 (refusing fingerprints or photographs; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  9. Constitutional Council — Decision 2010-25 QPC of 16 September 2010 (DNA file; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  10. CNIL — TAJ (criminal records processing file, formerly STIC and JUDEX): what is it? (in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  11. CNIL — TAJ: how to exercise your rights? (in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  12. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 230-6 (automated processing, TAJ; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  13. Légifrance — Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 230-8 (erasure and rectification, prosecutor's control; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩↩↩

  14. Constitutional Council — Decision no. 2017-670 QPC of 27 October 2017 (early erasure of TAJ data; in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

  15. ECtHR — Brunet v. France, application no. 21010/10, 18 September 2014 (STIC file; judgment in French) · AI-sourced on · awaiting human check ↩

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