James RogersAvon and Somerset Constabulary is employing the latest palmprint
matching technology to catch criminals.
Developed with Cogent Systems and Informix, the Automated Palm
and Fingerprint Identification System (Capfis) has already
successfully identified 50 villains since the police force started
using it in July.
Avon and Somerset is the first police force in England to use a
dedicated palmprint matching system.
"Fingerprint recognition is well known, but, owing to
classification issues, palmprint matching is not used to its full
potential," explained Ken Hobbs, head of the fingerprint bureau at
Avon and Somerset Constabulary. "When we looked at the figures and
saw that 25% of cases hinge on palmprint evidence, we knew
something had to be done."
Capfis works by using Cogent matching software to reorder an
Informix database at the rate of 1,500 palmprints per second,
before compiling a list of the most similar matches.
"On paper, the task of storing, classifying and identifying
thousands of palmprints seems daunting, but, working alongside
Cogent, we were able to get the system up and running in a very
short space of time," said Andy Cooke, sales director at
Informix.
Avon and Somerset Constabulary estimates that, by using Capfis,
it will have identified 200 suspects by the middle of next
year.