In September the South African Police Service (SAPS) - with the help of SITA - signed a R120 million contract with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and SAGEM for the procurement and supplying of an Automated Fingerprint and Identification System (AFIS).
Following the signing SITA will, as per its Business Agreement, act as an agent for SAPS. "SITA's already established Infrastructure and network connections with SAPS will be the basis for the AFIS to run on," Mr Henk van Rensburg, Program Manager for the Integrated Justice System at SITA said. SITA will also provide Data Centre and System Integration services to SAPS who will operate the system. "SITA will also provide a support function to assist SAPS in ensuring the highest level of system availability possible at all times," Van Rensburg said.
By its appointment as agent for SAPS, SITA will negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLA's) with the organisations who will provide the AFIS and ensure that these agreements are met.
Safety and Security Minister Steve Tswete said that the AFIS will speed up the current process of fingerprint identification by a considerable amount. According to him the current 40 working days to do the identification will be shortened to approximately 48 hours.
"The system will have a direct and significant impact on the criminal justice system and will also improve the foreign perception of crime prevention in South Africa," IDC Executive Vice-President for projects, Mr Jaco Kriek said.
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