On the morning of 3 May 2001 a presentation on the Automated Fingerprint Information System (AFIS) was given to National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, delegates from the South African Police Service (SAPS) and other Government departments and a number of SITA delegates including SITA Chairman, Mr Sello Rasethaba at the IDC's offices in Johannesburg.
Chief Executive Officer of the IDC, Mr K Ngqula opened the proceedings. He emphasized that AFIS will drastically bring down costs and will be more effective in fingerprint identification than the current manual identification system used by SAPS.
Assistant-Commissioner PJL du Toit and Senior Superintendent JS Pienaar of SAPS explained the shortcomings of the current system and the impact the new (AFIS) system will have on the processes of the SAPS and the Integrated Justice System (IJS).
Current problems being experienced with the manual systems include blockages in the IJS, ineffectiveness and inaccuracy. It also has a slow response time (55 days) to identify a set of fingerprints taken from a crime scene. Individuals operating the current system have to undergo long and strenuous training of approximately 2 years. The AFIS, on the other hand, will speed up the process considerably and will be able to accurately identify fingerprints within a day or two. The training time to learn to operate the system will also be decreased to approximately 2 weeks.
The AFIS was designed by a French company called SAGEM. Messrs JY Guedon and JL Maillodat of SAGEM demonstrated the capabilities of the AFIS as well as additional equipment that can be added to the AFIS when needed.
Delegates were shown the Cardscan procedure, where a ten-finger print card gets scanned into the computer on a flatbed scanner or through a special camera which photographs fingerprints directly from objects found at crime scenes.
The Livescan procedure includes making use of the ILSS Booking Station where a suspect's fingerprints are directly scanned into the computer without ink being used. This procedure has proved to be faster and more accurate in capturing data than the manual procedure. It also compares the scanned fingerprints with those in the AFIS database for a match.
The MORPHOTOUCH is yet another Livescan procedure device which can provide almost instant fingerprint identification. This device is a compact, hand-held device that can provide verification from either desktop or mobile terminals across narrow bandwidth transmission networks. These devices can be used at remote locations and can verify fingerprints via cellular network connection to the server and fingerprint database.
The AFIS for the SAPS, currently still in its implementation phase, will be operated on network platforms supplied by SITA and SITA will be responsible for the maintenance of the system.
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