The Fingerprints unit of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) recently held the first INTERPOL Fingerprint and Face Symposium, which brought together approximately 125 experts on fingerprint examination and facial recognition from 58 countries in Lyon, France.
Speakers at the two-day conference included representatives from the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, the United Kingdom ACRO Criminal Records Office, and the Biometrics Institute.
At the symposium, INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock urged law enforcement to move from a ‘need to know’ to a ‘need to share’ culture regarding biometric data on known and suspected terrorists.
“It is vital for our membership to continue the information flow through INTERPOL’s secure platform, as the proven method to close information gaps,” Stock said.
Conference participants discussed the need to improve the quality of shared biometric and provided examples of instances in which integrating INTERPOL’s biometrics databases into their border checks resulted in the identification of potentially dangerous individuals.
Earlier this year, INTERPOL launched Project First to help law enforcement in member countries improve their border security by using biometric data, such as fingerprints and facial recognition.
INTERPOL’s fingerprint database includes more than 180,000 records, and law enforcement conducts 40,000 searches of the database every year. In 2017, its use led to more than 1,700 global identifications.
The organization launched a facial images database in 2016 with data provided by more than 135 countries. The database generated approximately 50 positive ‘hits’ in its first year.