Law Enforcement

News, interviews and editorials about biometrics used in law enforcement.

Lockheed Martin announces NGI Increment 3 deployment, includes National Palm Print System

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Increment 3 of the FBI’s Next Generation Identification was recently deployed by a Lockheed Martin-led team, and the group says this new increment provides significant improvement in latent fingerprint search accuracy as well as a new nationwide palm print identification system to help solve cold cases. The improvements are the largest so far in a series of phased upgrades to the FBI’s biometric identification services, and incorporate powerful matching algorithms developed by Morpho and supplied by its U.S subsidiary, MorphoTrak.

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Allevate and Tygart unveil facial recognition media exploitation system for European law enforcement

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Allevate and Tygart Technology have just joined forces to offer a solution that automates forensic bulk-processing of media for intelligence purposes to cost-constrained European law enforcement agencies. Supported by Tygart, Allevate has now incorporated Tygart’s MXSERVER into its portfolio of solutions available to European intelligence, law enforcement and government agencies. According to the company, Tygart’s MXSERVER processes vast amounts of textual, video and photo collections quickly – automatically discovering, grouping and extracting segments depicting people. Using facial recognition, MXSERVERsearches media

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Animetrics unveils cloud-based facial recognition subscription service

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Animetrics has announced the availability of ID-Ready, a subscription-based service for smaller law enforcement agencies. According to the company, the new services takes a grainy, partial view, angulated 2D facial image, applies 2D-to-3D algorithms and corrects the pose of the face, so that facial recognition is possible. “ID Ready essentially takes a bad images and makes a mugshot out of it,” Paul Schuepp, Animetrics CEO said. The new system works as law enforcement personnel upload a 2D photo to Animetrics servers

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Santo Domingo Interior Police unveil new fingerprint, facial recognition system

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As a part of a broad attempt to improve its law enforcement capacities, the Interior Police in Santo Domingo have announced new ballistics and firearm technology, which includes fingerprints and facial recognition data of gun owners. The new system, called the National Weapons Ballistics and Biometric Laboratory, comes as a part of the Dominican Republic’s new Public Safety Plan. Reported in Dominican Today, the country’s Public Safety Plan also aims to improve the control of firearms in civilian hands with

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MEPs back deal with Council on police access to Eurodac fingerprint data

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On the back of a new deal, EU member states’ police forces and Europol could gain access to asylum seekers’ fingerprint information in the Eurodac database in a move to fight terrorism and serious crime. The new provisional deal between Parliament and Council endorsed by the Civil Liberties Committee, assures that personal data would be protected and police access would be limited to cases with major public security concerns. According to the European Parliament, Eurodac stores the fingerprints of asylum seekers over

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Cross Match provides palm scanners to NEC for Japanese national law enforcement

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Cross Match Technologies has announced that a custom version of its L SCAN 500P palm scanner has been delivered to NEC for deployment by the Japanese national law enforcement agency. According to the company, this deployment represents another step in the cooperation between Cross Match, NEC and the end user. “Cross Match provided the first generation palm scanners to the agency back in 1996/1997, as one of the few companies able to meet the stringent technical requirements,” Roberto Wolfer, product manager for

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Researchers discover method for lifting fingerprints from fruits

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Researchers at Abertay University in Scotland have found a way to extract latent fingerprints from fruits and vegetables – a previously daunting task. According to a report in STV news, this is said to be the first time this has ever been achieved in the UK and could lead to more comprehensive evidence gathering in future investigations. “Although there are proven techniques to recover fingerprints from many different surfaces these days, there are some surfaces that remain elusive, such as feathers,

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Danish Police turn to Steria for AFIS and biometrics system

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The Danish Police has selected Steria for an eight-year biometrics program. The project will build upon the Danish Police’s existing biometrics system, with the company’s automated fingerprint identification system, SteriaAFIS. Along with the SteriaAFIS, the company will provide the Danish Police with a range of in-house solutions and tools, including the SteriaFIT and enrolment stations with livescanners. According to the company, once built, these solutions will meet the Police’s specific needs and enable fast, electronic capture and biometric matching of fingerprints

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Facial recognition approved for law enforcement in Oviedo, FL

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Local police forces in Florida are looking to start using facial recognition software to identify suspected criminals. Reported first on WFTV Eyewitness News, this system has just been approved for use in the city of Oviedo, and has been in use in some districts since last year. According to the report, this “system is somewhat controversial because it allows law enforcement to search through driver’s license photos, even if you’ve never been accused of a crime.” The software, developed by

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UK Home Office launches public consultation on biometric data retention

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The Secretary of State for the United Kingdom’s Home Office, Theresa May, has published a letter launching a public consultation on the length of time biometric data can be retained where it is necessary for national security. “The use of DNA and fingerprints by our police and other law enforcement agencies is a vital tool in the fight against crime and combating threats to our national security,” the letter states. “However, in discharging our duty to protect the public, we will

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