South Australian police officers will soon be able to scan images of suspected offenders against their existing databases automatically, all from the force's growing fleet of mobile devices.
The SA Police is gearing up to spend its $1.5 million budget allocation on facial recognition technology designed to be accessed from in the field as well as in the office.
In the 2014 state budget, the SA Government reserved $1.5 million over four years for the police to set up a facial recognition capability state-wide.
It is currently in the market for an off-the-shelf solution with a proven track record that officers will be able to access from their police-issued Android smartphones and Windows mobile devices.
The force envisions a mobile application “that enables an officer to select, capture and submit images to the facial recognition technology for matching purposes and returns the results to the requesting Mobile Device via the 3G/4G network”.
The capability will also need to be accessible from a desktop PC.
“SAPOL are seeking to deploy facial recognition capabilities to forensic, investigative and front-line policing operations, in order to enable verification, identification, and watch-list search and match functions both in-house and in-the-field via mobile devices,” according to tender documents.
It plans to make the price rate it secures with the successful bidder available to all of its fellow law enforcement agencies in Australia.
Some, such as Victoria Police, have already invested into facial recognition technology to speed up the identification of persons of interest.
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