The establishment of fingerprint and DNA databases in the North Caucasus Federal District will significantly cut crime in the volatile region, the region's police chief said on Wednesday.

"I fully welcome this idea and do not see any problems occurring," Sergei Chenchik said, adding that the project would be neither time-consuming nor expensive.

He said the details of the project could not be disclosed.

In March, Russia's top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, proposed establishing mandatory fingerprinting and DNA profiling of all people living in the North Caucasus Federal District, including refugees and migrants, as a means of combating rampant crime in the region.

Such databases are used to solve crimes in Britain, the United States, Canada and many other countries.

Some human rights activists spoke out against the idea, saying it would violate people's privacy rights.

Chechen lawmaker Ziyad Sabsabi said he doubted the measure would help fight crime, because criminals, terrorists "or their ideologues" could "easily move around Russia" and register in other federal districts.

He said the most effective way of combating crime and terrorism was to deal with unemployment by "creating new jobs and building new plants and factories."

PYATIGORSK, August 25 (RIA Novosti)