FED: Millions of Australian fingerprints to be freighted OS

AAP General News (Australia)
04-06-2000
FED: Millions of Australian fingerprints to be freighted OS

By John Kidman, Crime Reporter

SYDNEY, April 6 AAP - Up to 2.5 million sets of Australian fingerprints are to be airfreighted
to the United States during the creation of the federal government's $50 million CrimTrac
police database.

More than 100 high-security flights have been commissioned to transport the exhibits
in sealed metal crates.

Some of the old-fashioned "ink cards" date back to the early 1940s, according to police.

Others include samples collected during investigations into some of the country's most
famous unsolved crimes.

The prints are being sent to Tacoma, Washington, where experts employed by French communications
giant Sagem will download them onto a state-of-the-art computer database.

Known locally as NAFIS II, the automated identification system will be delivered to
all state and territory police forces as well as Australian Federal Police (AFP).

Although similar technology already is in use overseas, the database will eventually
be more than 10 times larger than anything like it, according to Sagem executives.

The exercise also is the first step in establishing a series of online crime fighting
systems set to revolutionise Australian law enforcement.

CrimTrac is expected to eventually house a national DNA database, an Australia-wide
register of child sex offenders and a series of sophisticated intelligence-sharing programs.

However the initiative is not without its detractors.

The federal opposition already has expressed doubts over the prudence of transporting
literally tonnes of sensitive records across the globe.

Opposition justice spokesman Duncan Kerr indicated yesterday he would question Justice
Minister Amanda Vanstone over why the data entry project was being conducted in the US
and not locally.

"We have serious concerns about privacy issues and the long-distance transportation
of the (prints) and why the minister failed to disclose this was going to happen," a spokeswoman
from Mr Kerr's office said.

"We'll be raising the matter with her and asking that she clarify what has been done
to ensure such important material is safe."

Although Australian police already have backup copies of at least the majority of the
ink print cards, it is understood they may well be irreplacable as forensic exhibits.

"We would have to ask what happens if the records fall into the wrong hands," Mr Kerr's
spokeswoman said.

"What if one of the planes crash?"

According to CrimTrac project adviser Andrew Reynolds, Mrs Vanstone has taken every
precaution possible.

"The prints will be freighted in secured containers to a secured site," he said today.

"Australian authorities have also appointed a liaison officer based in Tacoma to oversee
the operation."

It had simply not been possible to undertake the specialised transfer of the prints
in Australia, Mr Reynolds said.

"The only Sagem system close to us is located in the US and it was a case of having
to utilise very specialised technology to do the job.

"It's a priority that we ship the material to Tacoma so we can at least get ahead of
a system which will potentially reap Australia millions in law enforcement savings."

The first five batches, some 250,000 prints from New South Wales police archives, already
have arrived in the US.

The overall task was likely to take several months to complete.

AAP jk/sb/apm/bwl h

KEYWORD: CRIMTRAC NIGHTLEAD

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