Law enforcement technologyNew FBI database improves accuracy, speed
Police across the United States can now compare prints to the much larger FBI database of seventy million prints in about ten minutes for a high-priority case, a half-hour for routine cases; civil fingerprint checks, such as those done for employment background screening, used to take twenty-four hours but can now be done in as little as fifteen minutes
It used to be the case that Houston police booked someone and then wait hours for a fingerprint match. Now, the Houston cops can do it at the scene in about 31/2 minutes using a handheld scanner called Blue Check. They could do it even faster — as quickly as 16 seconds, according to the FBI — if the wireless Internet service in the busy Houston area was less busy.
Police arrested 176 people in 2009 by matching their prints with the FBI’s Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC). Under the old system, many of those 176 might still be out there committing crimes — or preparing to.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the RISC — the FBI is big on acronyms — is just one facet of Next Generation. Built by Lockheed Martin and housed at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division and located in West Virginia, it will eventually replace the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS, that police have relied on since 1999.
The system is designed to incorporate all manner of biometric data as new technology emerges, from iris scans to gait recognition and even scent detection, so that law enforcement can quickly identify criminals and terrorists here and around the world.
For now, Next Generation handles mostly prints. The new system is faster and more reliable than the old system, though.
The Post-Gazette notes that beyond checking someone against the repository, which takes only seconds, police can now compare prints to the much larger FBI database of seventy million prints in about ten minutes for a high-priority case, a half-hour for routine cases. Civil fingerprint checks, such as those done for employment background screening, used to take twenty-four hours but can now be done in as little as fifteen minutes.
Accuracy has greatly improved as well because of an advanced algorithm for analyzing prints. Each fingerprint has many ridges, loops and swirls. The algorithm examines them and builds an index for each one, then compares that index to the others in the database.
The new system boasts match accuracy of 99.6 percent. The old system’s accuracy was 92 percent.
The FBI says that as biometric technology improves in the coming years, Next Generation will be able to add new parameters to its database, allowing for searches of how someone walks or even how they smell.
“When the system is at full capability in 2014, it is expected to serve not only thousands of police agencies but also the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the military,” .the Post-Gazette notes.
