Police have started to use fingerprint scanners in a pilot scheme designed to speed up investigations and enable more police to be on the beat. The pilot scheme, which involves 20 police forces throughout England and Wales, will use 200 portable fingerprint scanners that cross-reference those in the national police database.
If the scheme is successful, it could see every police force in the UK having fingerprint scanners in the next 18 months. Codenamed Operation MIDAS (Mobile Identification at Scene), the new system is designed to save time when suspects wait to have their fingerprints taken, meaning that an additional 360 officers on the beat as opposed to being in the custody suites.
The current fingerprinting system can take up to an hour, whereas the new fingerprint scanners would take a couple of minutes; an officer can scan suspects on the street, send them to be referenced through the police database and if matched relevant information will be sent back to the officer.
The police have insisted that prints taken with the fingerprint scanners will not be submitted to the national database.
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