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Archive - Archive 2004 - July 2013

Police to get state-of-the-art fingerprint matching system |30 November 2012

Police to get state-of-the-art fingerprint matching system

The signing ceremony

A contract for the project was signed yesterday in the presence of Minister for Home Affairs and Transport Joel Morgan in his office at Independence House.

The contract was signed by the Commissioner of Police Ernest Quatre, Interpol representative Serge Epouhe and Guenter Loerincz from 3M Congent Company.

Mr Epouhe said the new equipment is provided in the framework of the Interpol capacity building for Eastern African countries.

This programme covers Seychelles and is funded by the European Union. It aims at reinforcing the capacities of the selected states to fight maritime piracy, trans-national and national crimes.

“The system which will be provided soon will help the law enforcement in Seychelles to fight against trans-national and national crimes and will make the lives of police officers easier,” he said.

The automated fingerprint identification system (Afis) will be installed at the Scientific Support and Crime Record Bureau (SS& CRB). Officers at the SS&CRB will be given training before using this new system.

So far they have been processing fingerprint evidence manually with paper-ink traditional methods. This involves a lot of human resources, time and it is a slow process.

The new system will allow palm prints and facial data of criminals to be identified.
In addition, this system will help the SS&CRB to improve security, surveillance, civil data management for work permit, character certificate and to confirm identity in cases of immigration.

It will also offer valuable information to investigation for interrogating suspects and criminals where repeat and offenders are involved.

Speaking to the media after the signing, Mr Quatre said Seychelles became a member of the Interpol in 1979.

Mr Quatre said Interpol has previously helped Seychelles and on behalf of the government and the Seychelles Police, he thanked the representatives for their help which will be of great benefit in the fight against criminality.

Mr Loerincz said the company will do its utmost to get the fingerprints experts in the Seychelles Police trained and make them international experts for fingerprints.

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