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Florida Department of Children and Families Uses New Fingerprinting System

The system debuted lat week and will match fingerprints with photos and other relevant information.

MIAMI -- Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF) is using digital fingerprinting systems to further identify the 45,000-plus children under DCF statewide protective services, officials said.

The systems will provide a complete set of fingerprints, a photo of the child and relevant other information in a digitized format for the DCF. During a two-day event last week, at the DCF District 11 -- comprising Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties -- headquarters in Miami, officials said fingerprints and photographs for an estimated 3,000 children were obtained using the new system.

Officials said this is the first phase of what will become a statewide identification system for children under protective care, and the system will also be expanded to expedite background checks on all relative and non-relative caregivers, including adult members of the household where a child under DCF protection resides.

The DCF will ultimately use 19 portable fingerprint-scanning units, software and printers from Cross Match Technologies to collect the data, and special software developed by the company will also be used to facilitate the capturing of small children's fingerprints.

The data collected will then be used to validate the child's identity every 90 days; one of the mandates from Gov. Jeb Bush's Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection.

"Obtaining high quality fingerprints and then combining those with photos and other necessary data to produce the needed documentation is central to our efforts in meeting the new identification standards," said Maria Hossford, DCF District 11 director of administration.