Fingerprint technology advances key in combating transnational crime

Using advances in technology to more effectively share biometric data is key in successfully combating all forms of transnational crime, according to INTERPOL.

Addressing the recent INTERPOL symposium on fingerprints in France, executive director of police services, Jean-Michel Louboutin, said: “The evolution of fingerprint technology is one of the fastest-growing, most reliable and effective ways of identifying criminals, especially those trying to evade justice.

“It is also an area where public and private sector cooperation is essential in order to continue this development and achieve the successes we have been seeing.

“However, these results can only be maintained and improved on through the increased sharing of fingerprints at a global level.”

Mr Louboutin said that since the previous fingerprint symposium in 2010, the number of fingerprints stored in INTERPOL’s database had

increased by 30 per cent to more than 160,000, and in the same time 2,800 identifications had been made.

INTERPOL’s automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) provides instant access to the organisation’s central global fingerprints database, allowing authorised users to view, electronicically submit and cross-check records.

Automated ten-print verification has been introduced, along with a high-volume search facility that allows more than 1,000 comparisons per day against the INTERPOL fingerprint database.

Combating maritime piracy was also highlighted as an area where INTERPOL’s technological developments can bring added value, with several Somali pirates identified after the Seychelles sent their fingerprints to the General Secretariat headquarters and comparison with marks already in the database enabled their identification as being wanted by Belgium and India.