"We have been using the Omnitrak system for 11 months and we have already experienced amazing accuracy and speed results," said Rusty Featherstone, OSBI director of operations. "In this time we have significantly reduced our backlog from 18 months to two months. The bottom line is that Motorola's biometrics technology is helping us to solve crimes and identify suspects more effectively."
Utilizing five remote locations and more than 20 Omnitrak integrated workstations, including seven Motorola LiveScans, local police, county sheriff departments and local Departments of Education now have easier and more efficient access to OSBI's criminal history database.
Last year, OSBI completely replaced its automatic fingerprint identification system with all of the components of the Omnitrak system. Installation and acceptance of the $5 million system was completed in late December.
As part of this project, the company converted approximately 850,000 fingerprint cards. OSBI's system is designed to handle 1,000 transactions per day and store two million fingerprint and mug shot records as well as 400,000 palmprint records.
The system's benefits include:
- Automates processes to help reduce organizational costs and save taxpayer dollars.
- Latent fingerprint(s) from a crime scene can be sent and filtered through a database to determine if there is a match to a person or other crime scene.
- Local public safety and education officials can electronically submit inquiries on suspects, criminals and applicants, and within hours receive responses back from the FBI and the new OSBI system.
- Searches can be based on descriptions provided by witnesses.
- Background checks can be conducted for teaching positions and gun permits.
