Amazon’s own employees have now joined the chorus of voices calling for the company to halt its sale of biometric surveillance technology to law enforcement and other government agencies. Their demand has surfaced in an open letter to Jeff Bezos with an undisclosed number of signatories. The letter has arrived immediately after another open letter,…
Police authorities in the UK are being challenged over their use of public surveillance systems based on facial recognition technology. An organization called Big Brother Watch, working with politician Baroness Jenny Jones, has written letters to the heads of the Home Office and London’s Metropolitan Police Service asking them to either halt the use of…
A sheriff’s office in Minnesota may be compelled to publicly disclose how it uses biometric technology, depending on the outcome of a case before the state’s Supreme Court. The suit was first filed by Tony Webster, a web developer and researcher, in 2015, and is backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a MuckRock campaign,…
The law enforcement biometrics market is large and only growing in scope when it comes to areas of application. Advances in connectivity, mobility, secure cloud technology, middleware and of course biometric capture technology are leading to massive innovations for government agencies concerned with justice. Wearable tech, connected cars and more are all on their way to…
The Eaton County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan has started using mobile fingerprint scanners, reports WILX-10. The mobile scanners are linked to the Michigan Automated Fingerprint Identification System and the FBI’s national fingerprint database via police officers’ patrol car computers, allowing police to match against state and federal criminal records within minutes. And the deployment is…
Police in the US have successfully spoofed a murder victim’s fingerprints in order to gain access to his smartphone. It’s result of a collaboration recently initiated with Michigan State University biometrics researcher Dr. Anil Jain, one of the world’s most well-respected biometrics experts. Police believed that the murder victim’s Samsung Galaxy S6 may contain clues…
Turkey-based smart city solutions provider ekin Technology has announced a new kind of smart vehicle for law enforcement applications. Called ekin Patrol, it’s a police car equipped with a number of sensors enabling speed, license plate, and even face recognition. All of this detection occurs in real-time as the car patrols city streets. Together with its…
The Nordhordland District Court in Norway has ruled that police may compel a man to unlock his mobile device via fingerprint scan. The individual was arrested on drug possession charges near the end of January, and police believe his smartphone contains information related to where he obtained the illegal substance. The suspect has so far…
MorphoTrak, Morpho (Safran)’s American subsidiary, has been contracted to provide a major upgrade to the Albuquerque Police Department’s automated fingerprint identification system, the company has announced. Not only will the company implement its flagship MorphoBIS AFIS, but it has also been asked to introduce its latest platform, MorphoBIS in Morpho Cloud. Explaining the upgrade in a…
With Aadhaar leading the way, biometric time and attendance tracking continues its spread through India’s public sector. The district police office (DPO) of Virudhunagar state has announced that it has now implemented such a system for its own ministerial staff. It’s a move aimed at improving administrative efficiency and preventing potential timesheet fraud. Commenting on…
Morpho (Safran) has won a new contract to provide the Zambia Police Service with one of its flagship biometric platforms, the MorphoBIS Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The deal outlines a long-term, comprehensive effort. Morpho is going to deploy both mobile scanners and live capture enrolment stations at the headquarters of various provincial authorities in…
The Albuquerque Police Department is now using facial recognition technology as an investigative tool. The APD says it has been looking into the possibilities of this technology for the past two years, and has now found a system strong enough to be put into use. It works by matching images of criminal suspects against a…
In a sign of law enforcement authorities’ growing enthusiasm for fingerprint biometrics, agencies from 27 New York counties applied for state grants to purchase new fingerprint scanning devices. In Western New York alone, grants totaling almost $80,000 were awarded to police agencies from just five counties. According to The Buffalo News, the state grants are intended…
The Philippine National Police in Manila now have a new weapon in their arsenal: an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The system comes by way of NEC Corporation, a company widely seen as a market leader in biometrics for law enforcement. AFIS revolves around the collection and matching of fingerprint biometric data. It enables police…
Police Scotland has confirmed that it’s using facial recognition technology with CCTV images to help investigations, according to a HeraldScotland article by Magnus Gardham. The disclosure is the result of a Freedom of Information request filed by Alison McInnes, a Scottish Liberal Democrats official. The FoI compelled Police Scotland to reveal the full extent of…
Police in Hyderabad are looking to implement a facial recognition system to work with CCTV surveillance feeds, according to an article on The Economic Times. The system will be used to identify criminals and possible terrorists. Interviewed for the article, a high-ranking police official explained that the city already has a robust network of CCTV cameras,…
Biometric technology has helped police in Clearwater, Florida, to catch a dangerous criminal, reports Tammie Fields for WTSP. Pinellas Sheriff’s deputies used a fingerprint scanner to identify a suspicious person, ultimately leading to his arrest. The suspect in question turned out to be 25-year-old Seaton Shomari, wanted for sexual assault, kidnapping, and robbery charges in North…