Mobile fingerprinting wins award

Lantern, the project that allows hand-held, mobile fingerprinting has been awarded the Government Computing Award at a ceremony in London.

This is the second year in a row a police IT project has won the award for the best government to government project.

Lantern, managed by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), enables the capture of fingerprint details suitable for identifying individuals in an operational environment for the first time. It allows real-time searching of the 6.7 million fingerprints on the national automated fingerprint system (IDENT1) and is being trialled in ten forces nationwide.

The project’s overarching purpose is to establish a person’s identity using their fingerprints, away from the police station, thus increasing the time officers spend on the frontline.

At present, an officer would need to arrest a person and take them to a suitably-equipped custody suite to do this. Annual savings of over £2.2 million through time saved in pursuing false identities have been forecast.

Barry Taylor, deputy chief constable at Dyfed-Powys Police and senior responsible owner for Lantern, said: “Lantern has revolutionised the way police officers work and early results from the trials are showing great savings and efficiencies for the police service.

“This project once again shows that the NPIA, together with the police, are leading the field in providing information and communication solutions. Everyone has worked very hard on this project and we are thrilled to receive this award.”

At last year’s ceremony, the Violent Offender and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) was given the same award for succeeding in joining up the criminal justice system.