NSW police to continue deploying biometrics in processing criminals

Australia’s police force is committed to using technology to enhance biometric authentication in processing criminals and to ease COVID-19 detection.

The New South Wales Police Force, the largest police force in Australia has renewed its partnership with identity authentication firm IDEMIA for another six years. Under the renewed contract, IDEMIA will support and maintain the LiveScan solution, a biometric identification solution to process and book criminals’ biometric data in 142 police stations across New South Wales.

IDEMIA’s LiveScan technology provides law enforcement jurisdictions with a flexible workflow-based application to capture criminals’ biometric information and demographics. LiveScan ensures that the biometric solution can be deployed across the state efficiently while meeting the requisite quality and safety requirements.

The New South Wales Police Force is serving more than 7.5 million people over an area of 800,000 sq. Km. Biometric enrolment and authentication via the LiveScan solution is being used across the states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory.

Said Tim Ferris, Asia Pacific President and Senior Vice President, Public Security and Identity, IDEMIA: “This contract strengthens a long-term partnership that we have had with the New South Wales Police Force for over two decades. This collaboration proves IDEMIA’s capacity to provide critical support and maintenance when it comes to integrating multiple biometrics technology to increase national security and support efficient police services. It is a great honor to be supporting the biggest police organization in Australia.”

Elsewhere in Australia, ‘pandemic drones’ are being deployed to enforce social distancing in the current pandemic. This is probably modeled after the successful use of drones in China for delivering medical supplies, providing lighting and even disinfecting villages. In the case of Australia’s drones, specialized sensors and computer vision systems can be used from afar to detect feverish or symptomatic people in crowds.