§ Mr. Cohenasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will print the total cost of the automatic fingerprint recognition system of the Metropolitan police; and if he will make a statement as to the cost effectiveness and technological effectiveness of the system.
§ Mr. Giles ShawThe total cost of the equipment comprising this system was £1,654,000. The system enables fingerprint marks found at scenes of crime to be searched against the database more quickly and effectively and in some cases part-marks which were previously deemed to contain insufficient detail to support practical searching can now be processed and identified. The system has only been in operation since August of this year and it is therefore too soon to evaluate its effectiveness, but its use has been projected as leading to an additional 1,200 identifications annually.