A database using facial recognition is being taken up by central England police forces.
A database using facial recognition is being taken up by central England police forces. Derbyshire Police have adopted a law enforcement database system from ABM UK using the FaceIt technology from biometrics manufacturer Visionics. Police will use the database as part of Operation Liberal, which includes Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South
Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands forces. Operation Liberal is tackling so-called distraction thieves who target the elderly and the infirm and are difficult for single forces to track. The initiative was funded by the Home Office as a two-year pilot project, with the National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service. If successful, a nationwide roll-out is planned to tackle the UK?s estimated 2,000-plus distraction thieves. Detective Inspector Pat Parry of Derbyshire Police says: ?Crime families tend to evade detection by moving around frequently and assuming multiple identities. This system will greatly assist our efforts in tracking these criminals across the region and in identifying potential suspects.? The Incident Management System (IMS) by ABM records all intelligence information relating to distraction burglars, allowing the eight police forces to build a common database. Three other ABM pieces of police-intelligence software (Prophecy, Profit and Profile) draw information from it. The system analyses criminals movements and patterns to predict where they may strike next; allows victims to create composite images of the suspect, and uses FaceIt to search that composite against existing facial images on file. Information goes into a laptop and is synchronized with the main server. Gary Wood, Managing Director of Nottingham-based ABM UK, says: ?This common database makes information available in a timely and efficient manner. By combining the mapping methods in Prophecy and the cutting-edge facial analysis capabilities in Profit and Profile, police will be able to link faces to specific crimes and begin making arrests. With its accuracy and speed, the FaceIt technology, which has been embedded into the Profile system brings real-time identification capabilities to law enforcement in the field. Together with their software applications, ABM has delivered a system that not only meets the demands of this specific police operation, but also creates a framework that can ultimately be accessed by law enforcement throughout the country.?
