Mobile Fingerprint Technology

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.032989

I note you seek access to the following information:

This is a request for information regarding your force’s use of mobile fingerprint technology. Please provide the following information about your force’s use of mobile biometric technology for the periods between 1 January 2022 and today’s date; if you do not hold this information for the whole length of the period stated above, please provide it for the period starting from the date you began recording the information:

1. The number of times the mobile biometrics devices were used.
2. The following information about each search:
• which database was searched (Police [IDENT1] or Immigration [IABS]) or both),
• reason for fingerprinting
• officer defined ethnicity
3. If your force does not currently use mobile biometric scanners, please state if there are plans to adopt the use of the devices, and if yes on what date.

If you believe that any of these individual questions will or are likely to cause the request to exceed the ‘appropriate’ time limit under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, or should you require any clarification of the above questions, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will revise the request accordingly.”

Clarification - you kindly confirmed you were happy to receive data between 1 January 2022 and 20 July 2023 as that data had already been collated.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

There were 16,044 searches made on the system between 01/01/2022 to 20/07/2023. Please note, both of the aforementioned databases are checked on each occasion.

In relation to the gaps you see in the recorded data, this is due to the fact that the devices in question received upgrades from October 2022 which took some time to embed.