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
revolutionary fingerprint-capture system. Steria is acting as "prime
contractor" for this project. The system will be based on Cogent
Systems' (Nasdaq:COGT) 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% precision in finger- and palmprint trace searches and up to
99.9% 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," says Cogent Systems' President and CEO
Ming Hsieh.
