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Camarillo Police Keeping an Eye on Kids

The Camarillo Police Department is making sure it has a head start on any investigation that might include a missing child by issuing plastic identification cards for the community's children.

CAMARILLO, Calif. - The Camarillo Police Department is making sure it has a head start on any investigation that might include a missing child by issuing plastic identification cards for the community's children.

As part of its KidPrint program, the department issues a plastic photo ID card, about the size of a credit card for as many kids as it can sign up. The cards include the child's photo, thumbprint, height, weight, date of birth and other vital information.

The cards are left in the possession of the parents of the children, but the vital information is recorded and kept in a police department database. If a child is reported missing, the police department can quickly develop a flyer with the child's photo and vital information.

The program was initiated in June 2001 when Senior Deputy Yvonne Wooff and volunteers began to attend family-oriented events in Camarillo and create the durable plastic cards.

Wooff uses a Zebra Eltron printer, a Dell laptop computer, a video camera and fingerprint capture device to record data from the children. The fingerprint capture is done on a glass thumbprint video capture device. The thumbprint and all the data are entered into the computer, which kicks out the card in about a minute.

"In the event that a child gets lost or becomes missing, the parents will have a document containing all of the child's vital information allowing them to immediately provide law enforcement with the key facts needed to start a search," said Wooff.