The next police officer who has you in his clutches might be intimidating you with his new iPhone, in addition to his terrifying pen and pad. Law enforcement are increasingly relying on iPhone to match fingerprints. The FBI are also jumping on the bandwagon. They will be utilizing the touchscreen technology of the iPhone to locate terrorist suspects.
Every minute is critical when catching a criminal. The iPhone will condense the time required by law enforcement in matching fingerprints up against the national database, according to the president of Fulcrum Technologies. At Fulcrum, the mobileOne is an example of one of their biometric products that relies on the iPhone.
The driving motivator for law enforcement agencies are time and money. Under typical circumstances, a law enforcement officer may have to wait hours for a confirmation on fingerprints. after apprehending a suspect and bringing him in. While most phones are expensive, the mobileOne is cheap enough to supply nearly every police department, regardless of size.
Any iPhone can be converted easily and quickly with the mobileOne slip cover. High quality fingerprints, satisfying even the FBI’s demands, are within reach of every law enforcement officer. The Wi-Fi capabilities make database comparison a breeze. The officer can even readily compare the prints to those found in the FBI database, the Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC).
Next year, the FBI will be holding trials with the mobileOne mounted on the iPhone, seeking approval for field use. Those officers who are serious about catching the most dangerous criminals could have this critical tool at their fingertips sooner than the criminals would like.
Although officials of law enforcement departments pleaded with Fulcrum at an International Chiefs of Police conference recently in Chicago, the delay for use is hung up in the IT departments. The rigorous testing is a serious matter, because this is a serious tool.
Some might wonder why Apple has been chosen over Android based phones. The answer is simple. When dealing with such details as facial analysis, fingerprinting, and other biometrics, Apple provides the most stable platform available on phones. The biggest complaint Fulcrum had about Android was that there were too many diverse approaches to interfacing with their device. Without a unified method on Android phones, the Google approach will never find approval in the law enforcement industry.
Compared to another fingerprint option, called MORIS, the mobileOne, at $600, is much cheaper. MORIS, or Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, provides facilities to also recognize an offender by facial and iris recognition. MORIS utilizes the high resolution photo taken by an officer, and measures many qualities in the features of the face and iris to find a match. Over 130 marks are measured on the face, such as eye-nose distance. Over 200 qualities of the iris are compared to locate an exact match. The iPhone is used for the MORIS as well, and this reduces the amount of time required to access the database and pin down a match to a tenth of the time without such tools, B12 Technologies, MORIS’ design company, declares.
