HC Deb 22 March 1984 vol 56 c560W
Mr. Cohen

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will describe the new project of the national identification bureau for the placing of recordable offences on the police national computer, the details to be held on the index, the kinds of offences that will be recorded in the index, the anticipated number of accesses to this index and the circumstances under which that index will be used.

Mr. Hurd

Work is in hand to put on to the police national computer the following items of information now held manually by the national identification bureau about persons convicted of recordable offences:

  • Criminal Record Office Number
  • Offences for which sentenced or taken into consideration Sentence
  • Date of sentence
  • Court
  • An indication of whether fingerprints or a photograph were taken
  • Reference to originating force.

At present, the national identification bureau handles approximately 7,000 inquiries a week. It is not possible at this stage to provide an accurate estimate of the extent to which the police will use this new facility which is intended to help them in their operational duties, including the provision of information to the courts.

Mr. Cohen

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether free text retrieval techniques or any other techniques of browsing through the index will be used for the national identification bureau; and how this index will provide facilities that are currently not provided by the criminal names index and the wanted and missing persons index of the police national computer.

Mr. Hurd

There ar no plans to provide a free text retrieval facility in connection with the computerisation of the convictions records currently held on microfiche at the national identification bureau. In the longer term, however, facilities may be introduced to search these records by offence and personal description. Information about previous convictions is not included on the criminal names or the wanted and missing persons index.

Mr. Cohen

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is anticipated to link the national identification bureau to the information held on criminal information computers of other police forces; and if he will describe the long-term plans of this project.

Mr. Hurd

As none of the main records of the national identification bureau are held on computers, it is not possible to gain access to them through force computer systems.