As a milestone in the searching of criminal background of persons taken into custody will get easier than before. The home department is planning to set up an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) connecting all police stations in the state. When the system is implemented, the earlier custom of bringing the criminals to the fingerprint bureau to take the fingerprint using ink will be replaced. In future, the information of criminals can be exchanged at national level cooperating with the union home ministry.
As per the new system, details of about 1.5 lakh criminals have been collected in the police headquarters. Crime DIG K. Sethuraman told Mathrubhumi that a 24-hour high resolution fingerprint scanner and server are arranged for AFIS. The programme is implemented with the cooperation of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).
This system will be available in all 500 police stations in the state. In the first phase, the system will be implemented in 80 stations near the courts. Data collection of the criminals have been complete through State Crime Records Bureau. The latest foreign made scanners are provided to the state police by a private firm, which is one of the five companies in the world approved by US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
While we are trying to understand what does the AFIS means, AFIS is a system that connects all the 20 fingerprint bureaus in the state. When a person under police custody presses his/her finger on the mini scanner in police station, the details such as the crime history of the person, the previous cases, the stations where the case is registered etc. will appear on the display of the scanner. This will help to hasten the investigation. The fingerprints of criminals to be arrested in future will also be collected in the system.
