Press Release
May 21, 2003
Carrollton Police Employ Mentalix's Fed Submit(TM) To Send Electronic
Fingerprints To Texas DPS And FBI
Fed Submit Reduces Criminal ID Confirmation Turnaround from Months
to Minutes
PLANO, Texas -- Mentalix, Inc. announces the successful deployment
of its latest biometric fingerprint product, Fed
Submit, at the Carrollton, Texas, police department -- effectively
reducing the police department's turnaround time on criminal fingerprint
records sent to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from a few months to a
matter of minutes. The Carrollton Police Department's first electronic
transaction resulted in a response within a few minutes of the submission,
making it one of the only stations in the state with the means to
send encrypted fingerprint records over the Internet to the DPS.
Fed Submit provides two affordable ways for the police to acquire
electronic fingerprints: scan ten-print fingerprint cards with a
flatbed scanner or roll live fingerprints with a live scan device.
The software is one of the first solutions to allow the police to
submit encrypted fingerprint records, along with associated subject
biographical data and arrest information, to the Texas DPS electronically
for identification comparisons against the state's AFIS (Automated
Fingerprint Identification System) database and to track the received
responses. If a match is found, the results are sent back to the
police department. If there is no "hit" on a record in the state
AFIS, the DPS may then forward the record to the FBI for a check
against the national IAFIS (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification
System) database before the results are returned.
"We've been looking forward to getting a live scan system, and
it has been a big plus for us to be able to try out the system and
have our people get familiar with it before buying," Monty Stanley,
Assistant Chief at the Carrollton Police Department, says. "These
are expensive systems, and most companies don't allow you to get
the hands-on experience first. We've had a good relationship with
Mentalix, and it's been very beneficial for us to work with them."
Previously, the Carrollton
Police Department sent inked, ten-print cards to the Texas DPS
by mail. This method meant that results of the state's AFIS comparison
were usually not received until two to three months later. The Carrollton
Police Department, in a Dallas suburb of 115,000, acts as a holding
facility and usually transfers suspects 24 hours after they are
apprehended. Because the police did not receive confirmation of
a suspect's identity from the DPS within that time frame, the paperwork
frequently had to be revised once the identification results arrived.
By submitting its records electronically with Fed Submit, the Carrollton
Police Department now receives results much more quickly -- as fast
as within an hour of sending the initial transaction to the Texas
DPS. An additional benefit of faster submission and response is
that data-entry mistakes and fingerprint image issues can be resolved
immediately, while it is still feasible to take the fingerprints
again. Mentalix's Fed Submit software detects image quality problems
during acquisition and verifies certain data field requirements
as the information is entered, so most errors can be handled prior
to submitting the record.
"We are very enthusiastic about providing a dual-use system for
police departments," Paul Siegert, Mentalix CEO and president, says.
"Mentalix's Fed Submit gives customers the choice of scanning cards,
rolling prints on a live scanner or using both methods to acquire
fingerprints. As a result, our solution is affordable for smaller
police departments, and it also allows larger police departments
to use a card scanner as a backup for their live scanner, so they
do not have to spend money on 24/7 support contracts. Everyone saves."
Siegert continues: "We work with agencies all over the country,
but dealing with police departments in our own backyard has been
very enlightening as far as finding out exactly what issues police
officers confront with fingerprint systems on a day-to-day basis.
It is a pleasure to provide the technology that makes law enforcement's
job easier, and working so closely with the Carrollton police has
helped us to fine-tune our products both for them and for our other
law enforcement customers."
In addition to offering the flexibility of using card scanning,
live scanning or a combination of the two, the software runs on
Windows(R) and works with off-the-shelf hardware; all of these factors
make Fed Submit a more cost-effective solution for police departments.
For example, the Carrollton Police Department found that buying
a comparable system with both card and live scan functionality that
can communicate with the Texas DPS, along with the required equipment,
would have cost tens of thousands of dollars more than Mentalix's
solution. Fed Submit complies with the FBI's IAFIS scanning, transmission
and compression standards for both ten-print card scanning and live
scans. The software meets ANSI/NIST fingerprint submission requirements,
upon which virtually all state, federal and civilian agencies' identification
systems are based; data fields can be customized for specific state
agencies, such as the Texas DPS, to which the Carrollton Police
Department submits its identification requests. Fed Submit can be
expanded to accommodate the needs of larger companies as well. Options
include FBI-certified card printing, store and forward capabilities
for organizations with multiple offices, Jail Management System
(JMS) integration, and mug shot import and storage.
Contact the company at info@mentalix.com
for details.
###
Incorporated in 1987, Mentalix develops FBI-certified
fingerprint acquisition solutions for both end users and systems
integrators. The company leads the industry with the most IAFIS-compliant
fingerprint solutions, and its API products are used as key components
in turnkey systems by many of the top biometric developers worldwide.
Mentalix targets custom, systems integration and off-the-shelf imaging
solutions for Windows and a variety of UNIX systems. Mentalix maintains
its headquarters north of Dallas in Plano, Texas.
Mentalix and Fed Submit are trademarks of Mentalix,
Inc. Windows is a trademark or registered trademark of Microsoft
Corp. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks acknowledged.
Press contact:
Alissa F. Turner
Mentalix, Inc.
(972) 423-9377 Ext. 24
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