§ Miss Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if any relationship is planned between the fingerprint index on the police national computer and the system recently ordered by the Metropolitan police to computerise fingerprints; and if he has any plans to connect the Metropolitan police fingerprint system to other police computer systems.
§ Mr. MayhewThe fingerprint records of some persons held on the Metropolitan police automatic fingerprint recognition system may also be held on the police national computer, but there are no plans for any electronic link between the two systems, which use different methods of encoding; nor are there any current plans to connect the Metropolitan police system to any other police computer system.
§ Miss Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many bytes are available on the police national computer for police officers to enter a comment about a vehicle in the stolen and suspect vehicles index.
§ Mr. MayhewFor each entry in the stolen and suspect vehicle index, 120 bytes are available to record a comment. More than one entry per vehicle is permitted. On 9 April 1983 the average number of entries per vehicle was 1.054.
§ Miss Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the actual number of entries and the maximum number of entries in each index of the police national computer and the number of bytes available for police officers to enter a comment about a person in the wanted and missing person's index.
§ Mr. MayhewThe number of entries in each of the main indexes of the police national computer on 3 April 1983 was as follows:
Numbers Stolen and suspect vehicles 304,049 Stolen vehicles (chassis/engine numbers) 406,651 Vehicle owners 30,479,914 Fingerprints 3,148,415 Criminal names 4,635,327 Wanted/Missing persons 116,506 Disqualified drivers 254,896 Cross-references between the criminal names index and local records 927,118 The number of entries that the indexes may hold is limited only by the availability of computer storage.
For each entry in the wanted and missing persons index 100 bytes are available to hold comment. More than one entry per person is permitted. The average number of entries per person on 21 March 1983 was 1.074.