Australia and Idemia complete national law enforcement biometrics upgrade

A long-awaited upgrade to Australia’s national fingerprint biometric system for law enforcement with technology from Idemia Public Security is finally complete, with the migration of the back-end system to the cloud.

The upgrade is the first the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s (ACIC) has made to the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) in more than 20 years, InnovationAus reports.

NAFIS delivers near real-time forensic match results for criminal investigations. The NAFIS NextGen Project supplies improved biometric algorithms and expands access to the system to any agency desktop computer. It also automates the processing of fingerprints collected at crime scenes, increases data security and provides an interactive training system.

The NAFIS Nextgen is essentially a version of Idemia PS’s Multi-Biometric Identification System (MBIS), the company says. The system promotes interoperability between NAFIS and Australia’s Enterprise Biometric Identification System (EBIS), which is supplied by partners Unisys and Idemia PS, reducing data duplication.

NAFIS is used by law enforcement agencies around the country to compare fingerprints and palmprints, and receives 12,000 match requests daily.

“The cloud migration is a great outcome for our partners, with enhanced algorithms and features allowing the ACIC to scale to the needs of our partner agencies,” says ACIC CEO Heather Cook in a government announcement.

“As demonstrated in a recent case in NSW, this system can help identify historical cases and is setting a new standard for fingerprint identification and information sharing.”

The project was completed on time and on-budget, according to the announcement.

“I’m proud to continue our partnership with the ACIC and enable a secure, efficient way to aid Australian law enforcement agencies in helping solve crimes by matching crime scene evidence to persons of interest when every second counts,” says Thibaut Sartre, SVP of justice and public safety at Idemia Public Security. “This offering demonstrates Idemia Public Security’s strong capability to deploy biometric identification solutions in various modes, whether that’s on premise or in the cloud, with market leading algorithms and upmost security features to meet the flexible needs of various customers and markets.”

The ACIC awarded Idemia a contract worth up to AU$180 million (approximately US$128 million) in November of 2021 in a second attempt to upgrade the system. The first was the Biometrics Identification Solutions (BIS) project launched in 2016 with a contract won by NEC Australia. That contract was suspended two years later, and an inquiry suggested the government rushed the process.

NEC took the ACIC to court to recoup its losses, and said at the time it would not comment on any outcome. The case has disappeared from court records, suggesting it has likely been settled.

At the time, the cost of the cancelled project was pegged at AU$26 million ($18 million), plus an additional $3 million ($2.1 million) per year. InnovationAus puts the total wasted at $34 million.

Article Topics

Australia  |  biometric matching  |  biometrics  |  cloud services  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  fingerprint recognition  |  IDEMIA  |  Idemia Public Security  |  National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS)  |  police