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Home Office

Answer

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will assess the impact of the Police Standards Unit's role in the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System programme. [199635] Ms Blears: The Police Standards Unit (PSU) plays an important role in driving the effective use of National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS). The Home Office has invested approximately £150 million in the system and the PSU has a team working within the police service to ensure the best use is made of this investment. This includes making recommendations on the working practices of fingerprint officers using, to those on setting force policy for LiveScan, which scans and transmits fingerprints directly to the system. The PSU is working with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to implement these recommendations nationally. The unit also has an important NAFIS performance- monitoring role that is essential to drive usage and challenge those that are not making enough use of it. Since 2003, when the reporting commenced, there has been an increase in identifications from recently arrested persons of nearly 80 per cent. The PSU reports progress on usage of the system to Ministers quarterly. In addition, the PSU acts as a consultant to promote the use of NAFIS in individual forces and ensure that the efficiency benefits of the system are maximised. NAFIS became fully operational nationally in 2001. The system provides more than 4,000 fingerprint identifications a month and it makes a significant contribution to the number of detections.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

199635; 428 c640W;428 c640-1W

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Databases Fingerprints ICT Police Standards Police Standards Unit National automated fingerprint identification system

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk