Bringing identification technology onto the beat brings benefits

The National Policing Improvement Agency’s pilot into mobile fingerprinting technology has revealed successful results. Chief information officer Richard Earland, reports on its progress

The Lantern Pilot, managed by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), has developed a capability to allow police officers to take fingerprints away from the custody suite in order to confirm a person’s identity in an operational policing environment. There are currently 200 mobile fingerprinting devices being piloted in 20 forces, which will continue until the capability is delivered nationally.

Pilot forces are using the Lantern devices to ascertain people who would not otherwise have been identified, including numerous warrants for arrest and those driving while disqualified.

Developing the capability is part of a wider programme to help reduce bureaucracy in the Police Service and increase visibility of police officers to the public. As the pilot continues, the NPIA will look at the longevity of the programme and the benefits it presents to improve policing.

The Pilot is one of a group of services managed by the NPIA currently available to forces to deliver information to officers at the point of need. A separate area of work called the Mobile Information Programme is currently being rolled-out, providing officers with handheld devices allowing them to access information while on the beat. In order to align with, and leverage the investment from, the Mobile Information Programme, the team are looking to deliver solutions that will allow for integration of identity services to form part of a group of mobile services, rather than as a stand-alone capability.

Process
The Lantern device works by electronically scanning the subject’s index fingers; prints are sent using secure encrypted wireless transmissions to be checked against the National Collection of Fingerprints held on the IDENT1 database. A real-time search against the national fingerprint collection of 7.5 million prints is performed. Any possible matches are identified and transmitted to an officer in a target time of less than five minutes.

By achieving an identification more swiftly, both the officer and the subject save time, and this may avoid the need for the subject to be arrested to resolve questions of identity.

At present, the device can only be used with the consent of the person concerned. However, refusing to provide prints may result in the officer having to arrest and detain the suspect in the custody suite until their identity has been established, which could take up to three hours.

Once the prints have been used to identify the suspect, they are deleted. Current legislation dictates that they can only be kept until they have served the purpose of their being taken, in this case to identify a person. The prints are not kept after this point, nor are they used, or able to be used, as evidence in court.

In this way, the device simply provides a means to do out on the street what police are already doing in the police station in relation to live ID.

Taking the technology to the streets reduces the need to arrest or detain people at police stations just for identification purposes. This gives the opportunity to keep officers out on patrol, where they can direct their time saved into fighting crime and disorder. The prints taken using Lantern are used to establish identity in order to assist the officer in deciding the appropriate action to take.

Lantern provides a non-verified identity check and can be considered as a screening device in a similar way to the breathalyser. Like the breathalyser, it is less accurate than the technology at the police station, but it can still provide useful information to assist an officer in decision-making at the roadside.

Currently, testing shows it to be at least 94% accurate. Part of the pilot work is to continually assess the accuracy of the device.

Benefits
The piloting of these devices over the last 18 months has shown significant time savings when police officers are trying to establish the identity of persons stopped in the street:
• Of the forces deploying the device with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), and for the cases that showed a time saving, the average was more than an hour per stop;
• BTP saw their encounters achieve a time saving average of about 30 minutes per case;
• In a survey of officers, 90% estimated that Lantern was saving at least 30 minutes per case.

These different figures reflect the different styles of deployment used by the forces concerned. The greatest time savings come from avoiding the need to return to the custody suite with an identification arrest.

The value of time saved can be illustrated by considering the availability of officers at peak times; for many forces, this is on a Friday and Saturday evening. Avoiding the need to make an identification arrest by making ‘on street identifications’ allows officers to spend more time on patrol responding to calls from the public and also their colleagues, who may be in need of assistance. There is an additional benefit in reducing the number of persons in custody, reducing workloads there and making the custody environment safer for all concerned.

From a public perspective, one of the major benefits will be the greater visibility of police and increased time spent out on patrols. Additionally, the capability will reduce the time and inconvenience caused to members of the public where uncertainty over identity can lead to the individual being arrested and held in the police station while their identity is established.

At the end of the first year of the pilot, a survey was carried out with end-users and force representatives. The results were overwhelmingly positive, and provided clear evidence that the pilot and the technology have been a great success. The results also validated the benefits delivered. Headline results were that:
• 78% of respondents gave the device a score of 8 out of 10 or better for functionality;
• 76.5% gave the device a 7 out of 10 or better usability rating; and
• 95% of respondents reported that Lantern had a positive effect.

Case studies
In addition to the time saved (described above), officers have reported results in the following areas:
Disqualified driver: There are many reports of disqualified drivers being discovered having offered false identities supported on some occasions by paperwork. A recent example is a female driver in Kent, who gave false details on a routine stop. When shown the mobile fingerprinting device and told what it did she admitted to being a disqualified driver. Further checks on the Police National Computer revealed that she was also wanted on warrant.

Wanted on warrant: There have been identifications using Lantern that have overcome a series of lies regarding identity provided to avoid the subject being identified as being wanted on warrant. One such instance involved a European driver stopped as his vehicle did not have a current test certificate. He initially gave false details but the Lantern check identified him as a disqualified driver who was wanted on a European Arrest Warrant for ‘Theft and Manslaughter’.

Unconscious (and deceased) persons: There have been two reports of unconscious persons being identified using Lantern. The earlier notification to families and access to relevant medical records has very clear benefits quite separate to the amount of effort that may be required of the police otherwise. The device has also been used on many occasions to identify dead bodies. In the case of sudden or suspicious deaths, early identifications not only save time but potentially allow enquiry teams to focus their enquiries more accurately, and to discover evidence that may otherwise be lost.

Background
The pilot started in November 2006 with 100 Lantern devices deployed into 10 forces, almost entirely in support of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) work. These forces were Bedfordshire Police, British Transport Police, Essex Police, Hertfordshire Constabulary, Lancashire Constabulary, Metropolitan Police Service, North Wales Police, Northamptonshire Police, West Midlands Police, and West Yorkshire Police.

In March 2008, an additional 100 devices were deployed in a further 10 forces with the intention of exploring the device’s use across a broader spectrum of police users. These have included officers in local stations, road policing units and support groups, amongst others.

These forces were City of London Police, Durham Constabulary, Avon and Somerset Police, Thames Valley Police, Kent Police, Surrey Police, Derbyshire Constabulary, Leicestershire Constabulary, Merseyside Police, and Greater Manchester Police.

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=10564

Business Financial Services

Bringing identification technology onto the beat brings benefits