New Portable Fingerprint Scanners

*Source: Law Enforcement Today

 

Let’s face it.  Times are tough and getting new technology on the street for the troops seems next to impossible.  However, there are times when the status quo is more expensive than the hardware the department is asking for. 

Case in point… MorphoIDent portable fingerprint scanner allows field identification of a suspicious person without taking the officer off the street to bring the individual to a precinct office or jail.  The device has a look similar to the average smart phone and fits in a pocket just as easily.  The Blue Tooth or USB interface allows direct link to AFIS through a patrol officer’s laptop and results can be delivered within seconds.
So how does spending $1,700 per scanner save the department money?  That’s easy…

Consider the lost work time of spending one hour to transport and fingerprint ID a person.  Sure there’s the cost of one hour of the officer’s salary, but add to it the total cost per hour of benefits, HR admin time, and vehicle cost for the trip to the “cop shop”.  That would be the officer’s “loaded rate.”  Now, add the loaded rate for anyone assisting the officer once he gets to HQ.  Intangible costs include the loss of police presence on the street during that time. Now, multiply that number by the total hours your department spends identifying suspicious people per year.

Compare that number with the price of a scanner.  Which one is cheaper?  You tell me.
Instead of a full set of prints, only scans of the two index fingers are taken.  Once a match is made, the suspect’s picture and demographic information are displayed on screen.  The system is robust enough to analyze multiple suspects at the same time (because birds of a feather do flock together).  A vibration alert notifies the officer when the scan is successfully made and results are ready.  The 2.4” VGA screen is designed to be visible outdoors in full daylight.

So, how good is this whiz-bang gizmo?  The manufacturer claims the optical sensor is FBI certified and meets their Fingerprint Acquisition Profile (FAP) 20 specifications.  The MorphoIDent claims a scan resolution of 500 dots per inch (dpi) and a 256 gray scale.  Currently, the King County Sheriff’s Office in the Seattle, Washington area operates 4 units and anticipates delivery of 6 more.

Not everyone is ecstatic about the system.  The American Civil Liberties Union (not exactly a fixture in F.O.P. gatherings) has been expressing concerns that the system might be used to collect and store fingerprint information without probable cause.  However, the system is designed to query the AFIS database, not add to it.  Besides, such databases require a full set of prints instead of the two used by MorphoIDent.

Bruce Bremer, MBA is LET’s technology contributor. Bruce retired from the Submarine Service after 21 years of in-depth experience with complex electronic technology. Since then, he has been involved in fleet modernization and military research analysis. He teaches electronics and alternative energy at a Virginia college. Besides his MBA, Bruce earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer networking. He has been volunteering in public safety for many years.

Learn more about this article here:
http://www.komonews.com/news/tech/New-technology-allows-police-to-get-instant-fingerprints-results-175023291.html
http://www.morpho.com/identification/criminal-identification/handheld-terminals/morphoident/?lang=en
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019468300_fingerprints19m.html

Students In Texas To Be Monitored With Microchips.

*Source: RT

If it’s good enough for a dog, it’s good enough for a kid, right? A school district in Texas will be watching over its students a lot more closely, but not with the aid of extra teachers. Instead each pupil will be monitored with microchips.

Officials at the Northside Independent School District in rural Bexar County, Texas have approved a plan to track the whereabouts of each and every student by requiring them to walk the halls with identification cards in their pockets that are equipped with RFID microchips.

By using Radio Frequency Identification System technology, teachers and faculty will be able to monitor the move of over 6,000 students at two select schools and every pupil with special needs throughout the district as soon as next semester. If the pilot program is a success, the district intends on expanding the tracking system to all of its 112 schools, totaling nearly 100,000 students.

Backers of the program say the move is well intentioned and will actually bring the school millions of dollars in extra funding. Ghastly attendance rates in Bexar County currently keeps the district from earning around $175,000 a day in state assistance, reports KHOU News out of San Antonio, TX. Speaking to that city’s Express-News, district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez explains that the school wants “to harness the power of (the) technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in a school, and increase revenue.”

When each step of the students is being watched by administrators, the district expects to see their absentee count drop drastically. But is it worth the cost of killing the privacy of thousands?

“It’s going to give us the opportunity to track our students in the building," Principal Wendy Reyes of Jones Middle School tells KHOU. “They may have been in the nurse’s office, or the counselor’s office, or vice principal’s office, but they were marked absent from the classroom because they weren't sitting in the class. It will help us have a more accurate account of our attendance.”

It will also let teachers know who is in the bathroom and for how long and monitor the group habits of students. It could also become catastrophic, of course, if the very sensitive data ends up in the wrong hands. Similar programs were pitched elsewhere in recent years, but in other instances the American Civil Liberties Union stepped up to speak out; in many cases, the programs were shot down after the ACLU intervened.

"We are urging the school board to recognize the important civil liberties concerns and safety risks implicated in RFID technology," the ACLU’s Nicole Ozer, the technology and civil Liberties policy director of their Northern California office, wrote in a statement back in 2005 . "RFID badges jeopardize the safety and security of children by broadcasting identity and location information to anyone with a chip reader and subject students to demeaning tracking of their movements. We hope the school district reconsiders this serious issue."

In that case, the ACLU was opposed to a program at Brittan Elementary School Board in Sutter, California where youngsters were being tracked with RFID chips. Even though that kind of technology has become both more advanced and commonplace in the seven years since, it doesn’t change the concerns that continue to arise.

"The monitoring of children with RFID tags is comparable to the tracking of cattle, shipment pallets, or very dangerous criminals in high-security prisons," Cédric Laurant of EPIC told the ACLU in 2005. "Compelling children to be constantly tracked with RFID-enabled identity badges breaches their right to privacy and dignity as human beings."

But, hey — how else is the school going to raise a few grand?

“I think this is overstepping our bounds and is inappropriate,” Northside school board trustee M'Lissa M. Chumbley tells other district officials this week. “I'm honestly uncomfortable about this.”

Kirsten Bokenkamp of the ACLU tells the San Antonio Express-News that her organization is once again alarmed by Northside’s plans to implement the program. They are expected to challenge the board’s decision this time around too.

Unlike: Marine 'To Be Dismissed' In Shame For Criticizing Obama On Facebook.

*Source: RT

US marine Sgt. Gary Stein should be dismissed for criticizing President Barack Obama on his Facebook page: that is the verdict passed by a military board looking into Stein’s case.

Following a special hearing at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, the corps board recommended that the marine is given the other-then-honorable discharge stripping him of benefits. If the ruling passes, Stein will also be banned from any US military base.

Stain’s lawyers insist that their client, who superimposed images of Obama’s face on a poster for the movie called “Jackass”, did nothing more than exercise his right to free speech.

"We are truly surprised and disappointed but it was an honor to fight for a hero like Sgt. Stein and every other marine's right to speak freely," Stein’s defense lawyer marine Captain James Baehr said, as quoted by the Associated Press news agency.

Baehr stressed that Stein had, in fact, not broken any existing law.

Both the American Civil Liberties Union and United States Justice Foundation, two groups of which Stein’s lawyers are members, claim that his First Amendment rights are being violated.

However, prosecutor Captain John Torresala told the panel that the nine-year marine had repeatedly violated Pentagon policies which limit the free speech rights of service members. He said that Stein should be dismissed after ignoring a warning from his superiors about his Facebook activities.

According to Torresala, the marine’s improper anti-Obama Facebook comments and postings could have influenced junior marines.

On his Facebook page called Armed Forces Tea Party, Sgt. Gary Stein also superimposed Obama’s face on a poster for the movie The Incredibles, renaming it into The Horribles. The Marine Corps board decided to take action after Stein declared on Facebook that he would not follow unlawful orders, including from Obama.

Sgt. Gary Stein insists that all Facebook views were his own and not the military’s. He has also put a relevant disclaimer on his Facebook page.

Until the final decision is made, the marine has been moved from his job at the marine recruiting depot in San Diego and assigned a desk job with no access to a computer.

Pentagon policies limit servicemen’s freedom of speech, which includes criticizing the country’s commander-in-chief. Military personnel cannot set up a political club and must refrain from supporting any political party or candidate on TV or at any public event. Commissioned officers are also banned from using contemptuous words against senior officials.