Innovatrics ABIS Bolsters Transformation of Police Work in West Africa

Innovatrics ABIS is helping digitize paper files of the Guinean police. Since December, it has enabled all police districts to efficiently identify criminals by their fingerprints through computer, shortening identification time from hours to seconds

Innovatrics, a trusted provider of biometric solutions, has successfully deployed its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) in the initial stage of cooperation with Guinea’s police force. They will now be able to utilize computer power to quickly identify criminals by their fingerprints. Along with digitizing their paper files, ABIS also allows them to enroll new records into the database significantly faster through dedicated fingerprint scanners. Digital enrollment makes it much simpler to collect biometric samples.

Before ABIS, only a small task force in the capital, Conakry, were trained to analyze and catalog fingerprints. Currently, the procedure can easily be learned by any police officer, increasing the chances of solving crimes quickly.  “The automatization brought by ABIS will shorten the time needed for identification from hours to seconds, and it will be made available to all police stations in the country,” Juraj Stubner, responsible for the delivery of the system, explains.

In the first phase, the system, fully developed and deployed by Innovatrics, will work with fingerprints and palm prints and will also be used for digitizing existing paper files. Afterwards, facial recognition and remote access for identification in the field will be added. The revolutionary part of the whole solution is ensuring the capabilities of ABIS are spread out and readily utilized in all parts of the country with access to the central database. 

Any new fingerprint loaded into the ABIS is immediately checked against existing records, instantly notifying the user of potential matches in open cases. An adjudication tool has been developed to allow a forensic expert for side-by-side analysis of potentially matching fingerprints. It allows them to annotate matches, accurately measure their sizes, compare partial latent fingerprints, and much more.

“This system allows us to make police work extremely more efficient,” explains Abdoul Malick Kone, General Director of the National Police in Guinea. “The accuracy of biometrics allows us to prevent judicial errors and will greatly help us in administering justice,” he adds. Innovatrics is also providing the required training and know-how necessary for the police to efficiently use ABIS for their intended purposes.

Innovatrics is a trusted provider of ABIS and other biometric solutions founded in 2004. Its largest ABIS to date is running in Indonesia with a database of over 180 million records. Most recently, the police in the Brazilian state of Maranhão have deployed Innovatrics ABIS to issue new driver’s licenses and to identify criminals.