Plans for ‘mugshot’ database revealed

Story link: Plans for ‘mugshot’ database revealed by Jan Harris

Plans for a database of ‘mugshots’, which could be used in conjunction with CCTV to help identify criminals, were revealed at a Government inquiry into the ‘Surveillance Society’.

Speaking at the home affairs committee inquiry, Peter Neyroud, chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency, described how mobile devices could be used by police to take fingerprints in the street, view mug shots from the police national computer and transmit the data back to the central database.

The CCTV images would link into facial mapping software. This could then alert officers when a known criminal was captured on film. It is hoped that the system will be in operation in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Police in Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Merseyside are already trialling the technology in a pilot scheme involving 750,000 mug shots across all 43 forces in England and Wales.

The mobile devices will be linked with the Facial Images National Database project, allowing police officers to access the photographs, whatever their location.

Mr Neyroud also described plans to introduce behavioural matching software, which allows CCTV cameras to identify strange behaviour, such as that of terrorists.