Law enforcement technologyNPIA rolls out mobile fingerprint technology

Published 20 July 2011

New mobile fingerprint readers allow police in England and Wales to check an individual’s fingerprint against a national database — and do so in two minutes; more than half the forces in England and Wales have already received the new devices

The U.K. National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) has distributed mobile finger-print readers to police in England and Wales. The devices, known as MobileID, allow officers to scan a person’s fingerprints and check them against the national fingerprint database for verification.

The Guardian reports that the NPIA hopes that the mobile devices will save the public and police officers time as well as increasing the number of offenders who are identified.

The full deployment of the mobile readers follows trials in which twenty-eight police forces used technology.

Tim Arthur, director of operations at the NPIA, told the Guardian: “Identification is crucial to police investigations and giving officers the ability to do this on-the-spot within minutes is giving them more time to spend working in their communities, helping to fight crime, bringing more offenders to justice and better protecting the public.”

The Guardian notes that more than half the forces in England and Wales have already received the new devices this year.

Peter Goodman, Association of Chief Police Officers lead on MobileID, said: “One of the most powerful weapons criminals have is their ability to hide their true identity. With the advent of MobileID, this will become much more difficult, making our communities that much safer.”

NPIA says that the MobileID project is part of the Information Systems Improvement Strategy (ISIS), a program aiming to encourage increased use by the police of IT to improve efficiency.