Constabulary: Speedy Custody Processing

1 January 2009

Following extensive trials Merseyside Police gave the go-ahead for the widespread installation of new facial-recognition technology – helping officers to verify the identity of arrested suspects even before they reach the custody desk and saving thousands of hours of police time.

Assistant Chief Constable Simon Byrne said that his team was delighted with how the trials had gone. “The Digital Image Register is a truly innovative idea that has never been done before by a police force.”

The Digital Image Register (DIR) takes images of a suspect when they are kept in the airlock or holding cell waiting to be booked into custody and searches the images against a locally-held database.

This alerts the custody sergeant from the outset as to whether the person is already known to police and may be wanted on bail or warrant. It also allows him or her to decide which prisoners to process first, based on their past criminality and likely behaviour.

The DIR has been trialled at the force’s busy St Anne’s Custody Suite, where it is already accurately identifying over two thirds of the suspects making repeat appearances.

ACC Byrne said that the trial had been a success and that the force will now roll-out the DIR across all eight Merseyside custody centres from January. He estimates that these installations will save over 2,000 hours of police time each year.

David McIntosh of OmniPerception, who provided the facial recognition technology, explained: “Facial recognition technology can be of enormous benefit to forces because of the rapid and accurate way it can identify suspects."

“It has never been used by a police force in this way before and we predict that this Merseyside initiative is the first of many such innovations in the future.”

Patrick Leigh of the DW Group that provided the Digital Image Register unit said: “This is a good example of where forces working in conjunction with technology providers such as ourselves and OmniPerception can produce a solution that has exciting implications for the way all police forces process suspects in custody.”

 

Key Facts

Merseyside Police currently has a quarter-of-a-million images on its database and anticipates that the database will continue to grow once the technology is rolled out force-wide.

The force embarked on the trial because it was looking for ways to speed up the time it takes to process prisoners as they come into custody, freeing police officers to spend more time on the streets.

OmniPerception's AFIT.QA™ and Colossus™ software not only ensure good quality images but also enable the checking of images against the database in a matter of seconds, allowing for rapid identification of suspects.

The DIR unit is supplied by the DW Group, which has been working with the force to ensure the unit is robust enough to withstand the custody environment, that the lighting is of sufficient standard to take good quality images and that it is easy for officers to use.

Both companies have previously worked with the force on the custody booth project (DIB) which has laid the foundations for the whole facial recognition system by ensuring quality images are taken of first time offenders in custody. These images are then used to build the searchable database of face.

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