§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he will give for the new fingerprint computer, which he recently opened, the capital cost, the expected annual running costs, and its capacity in terms of the number of fingerprints for storage and retrieval; whether it has the capacity for storing fingerprints for the entire population of the United Kingdom; and, in 127W addition to the Police National Computer, to which other computers it can be linked;
(2) what are the parameters of the fingerprint computer.
§ Dr. SummerskillThe capital cost of the Videofile system now being introduced into the Fingerprint Branch at New Scotland Yard is £2.9 million, and the annual running cost when the system is fully operational in two years' time is expected to be £330,000. The system will then allow visual comparison of prints to be automated for the national collection, comprising fingerprints of about 2,200,000 convicted people; it has capacity to store the prints of about 3,400,000 people. The system is not linked to the Police National Computer or any other computer.