Beijing prosecutors are implementing a new system to preserve physical evidence involved in criminal cases that will keep items safe and make them easier to retrieve from storage.
Property collected by police will automatically receive a quick response identification code before being boxed, the Beijing Xicheng District People's Procuratorate said on Tuesday.
"The quick response code is like an 'electronic identity card' for the goods involved in a criminal case and preserved in our workplace, which can supply us with a clearer way to trace the property and ensure its safety and integrity," said Li Xudong, director of the administrative equipment department under the procuratorate.
Prosecutors will be able to easily trace physical evidence, including how long it has been stored, at any time, he said.
"The intelligent system generates a database for the preserved properties, providing more convenience for us," Li said. "In the past, the process was more labor intensive and all of the properties were put on shelves in the open air, which was not good for some goods' storage, such as clothes with blood stains, and it cost us a lot of time to record."
The boxed items have anti-theft locks and those who want to open them must accept fingerprint verification, prosecutor Wu Xinhua said.
"The procedures of the property preservation are under camera surveillance, and prosecutors are under supervision," Wu said.
For evidence that cannot be stored in the boxes, such as cash, vehicles and real estate, other measures are used to preserve them," he said.
"For example, we count cash involved in corruption cases and type in the information in the intelligent system's database, and then deposit them in our special bank account," he said.
Liu Hui, an official at Beijing's top prosecuting authority, praised the changes in handling criminal case evidence in Xicheng district, saying they would be extended throughout the city as soon as possible.
