§ Mr. Corbynasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will "list with a brief description in each case" the computers used, or planned to be used by the Royal 437W Ulster constabulary; and whether any computer is linked to the police national computer or computers belonging to the police force of the Irish Republic.
§ Mr. ScottThe following is a brief description of the computers used or planned to be used by the Royal Ulster constabulary.
- (a) The computer assisted policing system (CAPS) is used to record details of all incidents reported to the police in the greater Belfast area, and for the deployment and control of resources allocated to these incidents. It also provides management information to ensure that the most efficient use is made of police resources. It is planned to extend this system to the whole of Northern Ireland.
- (b) The crime information retrieval system (CIRS) contains details including ownership, of vehicles licensed or reported stolen in Northern Ireland. It also contains indexes relating to persons convicted of criminal offences in Northern Ireland, and of wanted and missing persons. The full records of criminal offences are currently being transferred to the system. It is planned that criminal statistics will eventually be produced from the CIRS.
- (c) A small computer is presently being installed which will record details of all firearms used in terrorist incidents.
- (d) Personnel records relating to all members of the force are in the course of computerisation.
- (e) It is planned to computerise in due course the existing fingerprint records and various administrative systems including stores, police vehicles and firearms certificates.
The RUC has no computer link with the police national computer or with any other police force computer.