CrimTrac taps NEC for face recognition, fingerprint system

Federal government agency CrimTrac has contracted NEC Australia to provide a national facial recognition and fingerprint scanning system.

CrimTrac is the national information sharing service for Australian police, law enforcement and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).

With the project the agency aims to develop a nationally consistent approach to facial recognition for the purposes of identification, linking and solving crimes and border security. The platform will also deliver a national capability for multimodal biometric authentication.

Facial recognition offers advantages over other biometric methods including the ability to identify suspects at a distance using recorded footage and images, as well as real-time identification.

Under the deal with NEC, the vendor will deliver a Biometric Information Services (BIS) system in 2017, and provide ongoing management and support services for five years following.

The platform will also replace CrimTrac’s existing National Automated Fingerprint Identification System and leave room for the agency to integrate additional biometric modes of investigation in the future.

NEC was selected due to its proven experience in fingerprint and facial recognition technology, which the company already supplies to more than 1000 customers in over 40 countries, including the Northern Territory Police.

Image courtesy of Don Relyea under CC