NZ police move to digital fingerprinting

STACEY SQUIRES/The Press

Identify: Constable Rob Menzies, of Papanui police, operates the LiveScan ID 205 System located in the Christchurch Central Police station watch house. The LiveScan replaces the old, and slower, ink fingerprinting process.

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It looks like a cross between a photocopier and an ATM machine but is actually a new way to record and identify suspected criminals.

LiveScan fingerprinting machines, which replace traditional ink-and-paper fingerprinting, have been installed at 37 police stations nationwide and are the means by which more than 80 per cent of prints are now recorded.

National fingerprint office manager Eugene Wall said the $40,000 machines were a huge improvement on ink and paper because they provided instant identification if a person's prints were already on the police database, and captured a better quality image.

Instead of rolling fingers through ink, with LiveScan the arrested person's palms are moistened and then fingers and palms are rolled across a scanner.

The image is converted into a computerised file and fed electronically into the Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) database, where it can be checked against prints held for unsolved crimes.

The database already holds more than 500,000 prints and can find a match within seconds.

The technology itself is not particularly new -- some form of digital fingerprinting has been used in the United States for more than 20 years. However, Wall said the police were getting much higher quality images -- 1000 dots per inch -- with the new system, which was designed by US company L-1 Identity Solutions.

(L-1, considered one of the world's leading biometric technology companies, also makes systems that use facial profile recognition and iris scanning.)

Wall said the machines had already proved very successful for the police. "It's certainly an efficient way. It's improving our systems."

Most significantly, LiveScan had resulted in an increase in crime scene hits, Wall said, referring to times when someone's prints were matched to those stored for unsolved crimes.

He said hits had included some for serious violent crimes, including several aggravated robberies, and many for more minor burglaries. The extent of improvement could not be quantified as the method of fingerprinting was not always recorded, he said.

Wall said the new system also meant arrested people who had previously been before the police could not give someone else's name and details when taken into custody. The LiveScan system would identify them within minutes -- a process that previously could have taken up to a week -- giving their true identity on the spot. "If they've got a record, it will show ... Overseas it's been shown that once LiveScan is up and running, prisoners stop lying about their ID."

LiveScan machines have an inbuilt quality control system, rejecting prints if they did not contain particular points such as pore and friction ridge detail. Police officers have reported enjoying this aspect of the system as it appeals to their competitiveness.

Christchurch has two units, as do Auckland central and the new Manukau station. The Royal New Zealand Police College also has a unit, used specifically for recruit training.

Wall said general feedback from police officers was that they liked the new system. "I can also tell you feedback from the prisoners is that they like it too," he said.

"It's a cleaner process and they also like the visuals: they like seeing the fingerprint appear on the screen in front of them."

Acting national forensic services advisor Gordon Sharfe said fingerprints remained the main means of identification in police work.

"We have a national fingerprint section so we're heavily invested in fingerprinting. It's also what you tend to find at crime scenes. It's a very direct method where you're not having to do a lot of analysis afterwards."

Sharfe said despite advances in DNA gathering, the two identification methods were complementary. "Fingerprinting is and will continue for the foreseeable future to be the main tool that we use."

- © Fairfax NZ News