NCJ Number
167640
Date Published
1996
Length
9 pages
Annotation
New technologies for image processing are aiding law enforcement in areas such as border control, traffic control, the recognition of persons, and fingerprint recognition.
Abstract
Border control in Europe will soon be aided by the use of passports developed according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards that provides for machine-readable information about the passport holder. A computer device has been developed for police at border control positions in examining travel documents. The document is read by infrared light. Prototype systems using neuronal networks are addressing bad illumination, the different designs of different license plates, and other issues in traffic law enforcement. Personal recognition systems are being tested for entrance control. Fingerprint systems based purely on software have several advantages over traditional systems. They automatically detect the position of cores, the position of one or more deltas, characteristics of minutiae, and the number of ridges between adjacent minutiae or between core and deltas. One system can also compress the essential information of a fingerprint to 14 characters to bring that information into an ICAO travel document. Footnotes