HC Deb 27 February 1992 vol 204 cc572-3W
Sir John Wheeler

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made since the publication of Cm 1163 in applying automatic fingerprint recognition technology to the work of the National Identification Bureau.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

It remains an objective of the Government to apply automatic fingerprint recognition —AFR—technology to the work of the National Identification Bureau. To this end, the Home Office has been collaborating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States of America since autumn 1990 on studying how best to apply this technology to very large collections of fingerprints. Specialist staff are being recruited to the Home Office to manage a programme of work aimed at developing a national automatic fingerprint identification system to support both the identification of arrestees work undertaken presently by the NIB and the matching of fingerprint marks left at scenes of crime.

Sir John Wheeler

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether all computerised systems used by police forces in England and Wales to handle fingerprints are(a) mutually compatible, (b) compatible with the system used in Scotland and (c) compatible with other systems in use or being developed by TREVI countries.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

The automatic fingerprint recognition —AFR—systems supplied by any particular AFR manufacturer are based on proprietary standards which do not allow these systems to communicate directly with systems supplied by any other manufacturer. As police forces in England and Wales have purchased, or plan to purchase, AFR systems from different manufacturers, these systems will not be compatible. Nor will they all be compatible with the system in Scotland. Similarly, there are a number of different systems in use or being planned in TREV1 countries.

The Home Office, the FBI and others, including the suppliers of AFR systems, have been co-operating with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (N 1ST) in the USA to develop non-proprietary standards for image storage and for the interchange of fingerprint information between different AFR systems. Insofar as police forces in England and Wales purchase systems which meet these non-proprietary standards, these systems will be compatible. This matter is currently being discussed with the Association of Chief Police Officers. The issue of compatibility between AFR systems in use in Europe is being considered by TREVI.