Belgian Police Department Uses Fingerprint Capture System

  • Apr 09, 2009

For its 100th anniversary, the Belgian Police Department's Legal Identification Division is getting an innovative fingerprint capture system. Steria Benelux has been chosen to equip the Technical and Scientific Police Department's Legal Identification Division with a fingerprint-capture system.

Steria is acting as "prime contractor" for this project. The system will be based on Cogent Systems' new "Automated Palm Print and Fingerprint Identification System" (APFIS).

Steria will enable remote connection by installing the FIT (Fingerprint Image Transmission) peripherals required for the capture and transmission of finger and palm prints and traces, and will also be in charge of all necessary integration services.

The federal police's Legal Identification Division conducted an in-depth evaluation of each offer, including intensive performance testing for each of the proposed solutions. Steria's offer of Cogent Systems' APFIS technology demonstrated its high-level performance and resulted in the police awarding the contract to Steria.

Cogent's new APFIS system will replace an earlier version, which was installed 10 years ago. It will support all future new functionalities, provide more precise results with a shorter response time, and include new, improved functionalities. Indeed, the new system can store finger- and palm print trace images at 1,000 pixel per inch (ppi) resolution and allows traces to be examined in comparison with flat or rolled fingerprints as well as palm prints.

This new identification system will increase the Belgian Police's crime-solving capacity. It will offer increased search precision, significantly improved response times, a palm print search option, and other innovative functions as well. For example, the new system will offer 90 percent precision in finger- and palmprint trace searches and up to 99.9 percent precision in fingerprint searches.

Moreover, the new system will allow a fast, high-quality exchange of dactyloscopic data with other countries (with Interpol and other countries covered by the Prüm Treaty). High-level integration with the other IT systems used by the Belgian Police has been planned in order to optimize the flow of information.

"This contract at the heart of Europe considerably strengthens our presence there, where Cogent Systems technology is already being used in other European Union countries," said Cogent Systems' president and CEO Ming Hsieh. "The strength of Cogent’s technology resides in its precision, its reliability and its quick implementation; characteristics that played a crucial role in the awarding of this contract."

"For Steria, this is a strategic project in systems integration and security. Our expertise in biometric systems integration unquestionably played an essential role in the final phase of evaluation,” said Steria Benelux CEO René Luyckx. “This project illustrates our ability to offer our public- and private-sector customers innovative solutions delivered by our biometrics expertise center."

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