Now in use for five years in SA, MorphoTouch, a biometric fingerprinting tool, has revolutionised the way police process criminal suspects, a spokesman says.
Captain Percy Morokane says the system, introduced in March 2002 as a pilot programme "to see if it really works", is now used countrywide.
It is mostly used at roadblocks and during intelligence-driven cordon-and-search operations to link suspects with their crimes. "That piece of equipment has revolutionised the way suspects are treated," he says.
Morokane cannot say how many crooks the Sagem-made device has caught. "The South African Police Service (SAPS) does not keep statistics on 'the manner of arrest' of suspects.
"However, we need to put on record that a notable number of suspects, including those who have eluded the police for prolonged periods of time, have been arrested, prosecuted and sentenced after having been identified via Sagem's MorphoTouch."
50 000 fingerprints
One criminal linked to some of his offences in this way is Ananias Mathe, the Mozambican rapist and robber, fingered so far in at least 70 cases. Mathe is today appearing in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court, in connection with his escape from Pretoria's C-Max Prison last year.
The device currently in use houses up to 50 000 fingerprints and can be connected to the central police Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) database, home to copies of the fingerprints of over five million criminals.
AFIS replaced a manual system that had been in use for a century. This required staff at the Criminal Record Centre to physically compare fingerprints found on a scene with the sets of hard copy fingerprints.
MorphoTouch can complete a local database query within five seconds, while a search of the full database takes between five and 10 minutes, depending on the network. The AFIS system is limited to criminal fingerprints and legislation prohibits access to civil databases, including those held by the Department of Home Affairs. MorphoTouch is claimed to be 98.5% accurate.
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