Biometrics in use by Victoria Police
Information Certainty: Documented
Deployment Purpose: Criminal investigations, Surveillance
| Summary |
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| 0 |
Products and Institutions:
Status and Events:
| Status | Ongoing |
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| Events | Start (2 January 2004, Documented, , No description) |
| Start Date | |
| End Date |
Users:
| Involved Entities | |
|---|---|
| Managed by | Victoria Police |
| Used by | Victoria Police |
Location:
| City | Melbourne |
|---|---|
| Country ⠉ | Australia |
Description[ ]
It can be estimated that facial recognition and fingerprinting has been in use by Victoria Police since 2004. Since then the force has updated these technologies and also uses drones.
Morpho will refresh the current fleet and increase the number of fingerprint and face capturing stations (LiveScans) up to 92 at Victoria’s police stations across metropolitan and remote locations. This one stop Kiosk will integrate Fingerprint, Palmprint and facial capture in one solution providing significant efficiency gains. Victoria Police’s facial recognition capability will almost quadruple in capacity. Under this contract, Victoria Police is increasing its fleet of fingerprinting capture equipment by an additional 20 stations for greater coverage across the state. This will raise the percentage of electronically captured prints in Victoria well above 90% providing real time identification. "Morpho’s proven expertise in Australia played a major role in winning this new contract. We have been working closely with the Victoria Police for twelve years, and have already supplied 72 stations to record fingerprints and palmprints. By expending its fingerprint and facial identification capability, Victoria Police is once again a technology pioneer and one of the best equipped police forces in the world." Tim Ferris, managing director of the local subsidiary Morpho Australasia 1
Victoria Police is quietly using facial recognition technology to identify criminal suspects at 85 of the state's busiest police stations. A month after body-worn cameras came under the spotlight, police figures reveal that another form of camera technology known as iFace has been rolled out at key stations 2
In July, Police Minister Lisa Neville unveiled a squad of 50 new “eye in the sky” drones, fitted with 360-degree cameras, that police can use for search-and-rescue missions, crime-prevention, and counter-terrorism. At the time police did not rule out combining the aerial devices with facial recognition software, saying there was “certainly the opportunity” to do so in the future. A government spokeswoman said Victoria Police “have a range of methods in place to search for known offenders for investigative and intelligence gathering purposes” but there were currently no plans to use facial recognition technology on the new fleet of drones 2
References
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- ^ "Morpho chosen to help Victoria Police strengthen its criminal identification system". (2016) <https://www.idemia.com/press-release/morpho-chosen-help-victoria-police-strengthen-its-criminal-identification-system-2016-01-12> Accessed: 2022-06-17
- a b "Police using facial recognition cameras at Victoria's busiest stations". (2019) <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/cops-using-facial-recognition-cameras-at-victoria-s-busiest-stations-20191220-p53m0e.html> Accessed: 2022-06-17