Napa Police Using Mobile Tech in the Fight Against Crime

When Apple released its fingerprint recognition feature on the iPhone 5S, consumers were pretty excited. Today, the identification feature once reserved for high-security has become mainstream, finding itself in the daily lives of millions of mobile users. But fingerprint recognition on your iPhone isn’t the only thing mobile tech is good for. For almost two years, the Napa County Sherriff’s Office has been using mobile fingerprint technology to help law enforcement with a variety of specialized tasks. 

The latest device features dual uses: fingerprint recognition for quick identifications and electronic ticketing. So far the Napa County Sherriff’s Office has nine devices, which they share throughout the county. 

What It Means for Law Enforcement

If this sounds like an advancement for law enforcement, it is in some ways—however, the technology may be lacking in others. For instance, the fingerprint recognition device scans a person’s finger and crosschecks it against other fingerprints that are already in California’s fingerprint database. These people are predominantly criminals but also include nurses, cops, teachers, and anyone who’s ever had a reason to be fingerprinted in the state of California. While this can be a huge advantage in some cases, in others, the identification technology would prove useless if the suspect had no prior record or had never been marked on the proverbial grid. 

Similarly, even if a suspect is found in the database, it doesn’t give law enforcement much information aside from their identification. For instance, knowing if a suspect has a previous record of violent offenses could be invaluable information for law enforcement working in the field, where quick decision-making can often mean the difference between life and death. 

Law enforcement is using the technology to help identify people in the field, especially individuals attempting to present fake IDs or avoid identification altogether.

“The alternative options for identifying individuals in the field are very lengthy or time-consuming,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Doug Pike, “so this product allows us to do that in a rapid manner.”

In addition to cutting down time, the device also allows law enforcement to better handle people who forget, misplace, or lose their IDs. 

Cutting through the red tape and wasteful time expenditures is undoubtedly worth the expense law enforcement is willing to pay for these nifty mobile devices. Napa represents a small geographic area and a limited number of crimes. For other counties, the usefulness of mobile fingerprint recognition may not be fully realized in a practical way just yet.