Cabinet body okays NBI’s P2.5-B fingerprint ID project

The Cabinet-level Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) has given its first pass approval to the P2.512-billion fingerprint identification project for the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The 10-year project will involve the installation and testing of a hardware and software for fingerprinting technology. Known as the Extensible Automated Fingerprint Identification System (XAFIS) project, it aims to enhance the NBI’s ability to solve and deter crimes.

The NBI-XAFIS is an unsolicited build-operate-transfer (BOT) project proposed by the Kyundenko-Needs Creator IT Corp. (KNIT) to the NBI.

The NBI expects the project to be operational as early as nine months from the start of the installation and testing of the hardware and software at the NBI headquarters.

Daniel F. Pabellon, director of the Information and Technology Coordination Staff of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), said that the NBI-XAFIS project would simplify the processes on the issuance of clearances. NEDA is the lead government agency in the ICC.

More importantly, the technology will speed up crime investigation by quickly generating the fingerprint characteristics and features of persons that most closely match those of fingerprints taken from a crime scene.

"Once operational, the system will enhance the capability of the NBI in solving and deterring crimes by converting the paper-based criminal and civilian fingerprint records into a computerized database," Pabellon said.

The NBI-XAFIS entails the establishment of a computerized criminal fingerprint database that will convert the existing 800,000 criminal fingerprints and the 400 latent prints on the NBI forms into electronic format.

It will create a high integrity fingerprint database that can accommodate huge 30-million ten print records, composed of criminal, civilian and latent fingerprints.

"It would also utilize fuzzy logic and neuron technology in its automatic conversion of 10 prints and its semi-automatic conversion of latent prints," added Pabellon, as he noted the advantage of the self-training algorithm in cases of encoding poor quality images.

The project will significantly shorten the time needed to identify and arrest criminals, thus improving the criminal-justice system in the country.

The XAFIS system is designed to use general-purpose personal computers to do all the steps required in fingerprint processing including encoding, matching, printing and issuance of NBI clearance. It is a major improvement over the conventional use of special-purpose machines. Likewise, personal computers (PCs) are cheaper, resulting to direct savings in investment costs.

The large amount of fingerprint data collected by the NBI can be a very good source of vital information in solving crimes because the installation of the XAFIS shall enable NBI to maximize the use of fingerprint data.

The project is consistent with the government’s thrust of ensuring public safety and national security through the acquisition of the appropriate equipment and technology to enhance the NBI’s capability in crime investigation and resolution.