By Nick Heath, 22 October 2008 14:22
NEWS
Handheld fingerprint readers will be rolled out to police across the UK from 2010 as part of the Project Midas scheme, allowing officers to perform on the spot ID checks without having to take suspects back to the station.
The project will initially allow each force to ID suspects on the move by providing mobile access to the 7.5 million fingerprint scans held on the police's Ident1 biometric database.
Speaking at Biometrics Conference 2008 yesterday, Geoff Whitaker, CTO of biometrics at the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), said other biometrics such as facial scans and the ability to access mug shots of suspects on the handheld scanners could be added at a later date.
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The Police National Computer, immigration databases and intelligence databases could also have real-time links to the mobile scanners in future, giving police offices almost instant access to a person's ID and personal information.
Whitaker said: "Increasingly police officers are expecting more mobile data, we are trying to move towards more integrated mobile databases.
"Midas will deliver a fully national biometric solution for the UK police."
Whitaker said that the NPIA is experimenting with smaller solid state fingerprint sensors and stressed the importance of a system that works in all weathers and situations.
Midas follows an earlier biometrics trial, Lantern, run over the last 18 months. The pilot saw around 200 handheld fingerprint scanners used to carry out roadside ID checks.
Lantern has seen 30,000 checks run against the Ident1 database, with 80 per cent of results returned in two minutes.
Project Midas will run until 2013 and will be delivered by several private suppliers, with the first contract to be awarded next year.
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Guy Reynolds
Don't hold your breath for though it is not mentioned here I have no doubt that the government will be announcing that these scanners will be linked to the ID Card database. Probably on anti-terrorism grounds.
2. Richard
How reliable will they be?
Apart from the worrying civil liberty concerns, will these fingerprint scanners actually work reliably?
Yesterday I had to wait many minutes in a shop while the manager tried - and failed - to identify himself using the fingerprint scanner attached to his computerised till.
Even in the controlled, benign environment of this shop with only a handful of staff, the scanner wouldn't recognise the manager's fingerprint.
Getting a mobile police fingerprint scanner to work reliably on the street with a large population of semi co-operative suspects will be a major challenge.
The will be lots of "false negative" & false positive" errors.
3. Anon
Don't New Labour make it very easy not to vote for them come the next election?