CrimTrac to tender for new biometrics system

CrimTrac is gearing up to replace its national fingerprint database, used across the country by law enforcement agencies, with a new and expanded biometrics identification system.

The agency, which hosts national systems and databases for the use of state and federal police, currently runs the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), supported by law enforcement software specialists Morpho.

This morning Justice Minister Michael Keenan announced that the agency would soon approach the  market to replace NAFIS with “cutting edge technology” that will expand the capabilities of the database beyond fingerprints to faces, palm prints, voice recognition, scars, bodily marks and tattoos.

The new system is also expected to speed up the matching process.

CrimTrac hopes to have the replacement system up and running by 2017. It is currently also working on a new national DNA matching system that will allow it to match familial links between samples, where only direct matches are currently picked up.

It is also making ground on a $9.1 million national ballistics network combating interstate gang violence and has received $3.3 million to trial a National Domestic Violence Order (DVO) scheme which would communicate the issuance of orders across state and territory borders.

A formal request for tenders has yet to be issued.