ACIC launches fingerprint matching into the cloud

Australia’s lead criminal intelligence agency, ACIC, has completed a $40 million project to move its national fingerprint identification system into the cloud.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission had previously hosted the system – known as the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System or NAFIS – on-premises using its own equipment.

ACIC started the process of migrating the system into the cloud in November 2021 when it awarded the contract for the work to French biometric specialist IDEMIA Group. The company completed the final milestone of the NAFIS NextGen Project in late September.

ACIC said that the decision to move NAFIS, which is accessed by LEAs 12,000 times per day, into the cloud would automate fingerprint processing, provide more accurate matching, increase security and improve policing across law enforcement agencies more broadly.

“Automating the processing of crime scene fingerprints has significantly reduced the amount of manual handling previously experienced with using the former system,” an ACIC spokesperson told iTnews. 

The uplift also provides a new interactive training system for staff, the commission said.

Overall, the cloud migration cost $40 million, with funding allocated through ACIC’s National Policing Information Systems and Services Special Account. It was delivered “on time and on budget”, the commission said in a release. 

IDEMIA delivered the NAFIS migration after it secured three contracts with ACIC in 2021 valued  at $181 million in total. 

Most of that budget went towards pre and post-NextGen Project delivery services, while one $35 million contract went towards the uplift. The additional $5 million was "for non-contract project delivery costs," an ACIC spokesperson confirmed to iTnews.

The cloud migration marks the final milestone in the NAFIS NextGen Project. It follows NEC’s abandoned project to upgrade the system in 2018, known as the biometrics identification solution (BIS). 

The BIS was intended to replace NAFIS but was terminated “in light of project delays”, former ACIC chief executive Michael Phelan said at the time.

ACIC is also currently working two other policing information system upgrades – its National Firearms Register (NFR) and its new National Criminal Intelligence System (NCIS).