An HS Daily Wire conversation with Robert Horton of Motorola

our website is used primarily in public-safety environments like jail intakes, typically during interaction with inmates. You don’t want to have equipment out that someone could pick up and use as a club. We offer the same software application in a desktop or laptop, for office and field locations.” Of the Mobile AFIS, Horton said, “We’ve had this product since 2004. Right now we’ve got 14 customers in the U.S. and Europe. The Swiss national police just used it at Euro Cup. Here in the U.S., example customers are Miami-Dade County, Harris County, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations. These would all be public safety applications.” He sketched a scenario. A public safety officer pulls a driver over. That person is wanted and so claims not to have a driver’s license, or any other ID. In most jurisdictions, an officer who has established reasonable suspicion is permitted to use a mobile AFIS to collect fingerprints. “What officers are finding is that people are lying about who they are,” said Horton. “On the basis of a name search alone, an individual might be let pass. But an AFIS search discloses a wanted felony murder suspect who was just about to be let slip through the officer’s fingers. The robbery and narcotics divisions of Harris County, Texas, are using this technology now, and they’ve served multiple warrants. Also, patrol officers are using it. In Miami-Dade it was used during the Super Bowl last year, at entrances and exits where persons arousing suspicion claimed to have no ID.”

In Europe, the Motorola portable AFIS is being used in border control as well as for public safety. In Switzerland, at the border crossing with Germany, the Swiss are capturing two thumbprints with the mobile device, for checking against national data bases. According to Robert Horton, Motorola Biometrics will continue to develop and deploy biometric solutions in partnership with key commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology and integration firms. He said, “We entered the year with excellent customer satisfaction survey results, indicating that customers intend to do more business with us in the future. We expect an increased number of deployments incorporating our multi-modal and Mobile ID functionality with seamless mobility, as countries around the world tender for their own fingerprint-based systems similar to what Motorola deployed in the EU for BIODEV II.”

Robert Horton

Robert Horton is director of Portfolio Management & Strategy for Motorola’s Biometrics Business Unit. He is responsible for worldwide product management, product marketing, proposals, and strategy for all of the unit’s product lines. Before joining Motorola in July 2004, Horton held senior management positions with responsibility for strategic product management at Western Digital, Phoenix Technologies, and Pacific Digital. He holds his MBA from the University of Redlands, and Bachelor of Science degrees in both biomedical engineering and electrical engineering from Duke University.