Reading the
National Policing Improvement Agency annual report and accounts 2008-09
we were reminded of our previous Spy Blog article:
Police Receive £50 Million For 10,000 Hand Held Computers i.e. £5,000 each - are they gold plated ?
<40 MANAGEMENT COMMENTARYDuring 2008, the Home Office allocated £80 million of funding over the next three years to support the delivery of handheld computers to frontline police officers. The funding was provided to increase the number of devices used by officers to 30,000 by March 2010.
The roll-out, managed by the NPIA has already exceeded its first milestone to have 10,000 devices in force by September 2008, and the second phase of roll-out is well
underway. All forces in England, Scotland and Wales have now received a portion of the funding.[...]
So £50 million has now magically become £80 million !
MANAGEMENT COMMENTARY page 71
Table 2: Summary of other protected personal data related incidents
in 2008/09Incidents deemed by the Data Controller not to fall within the criteria for report to the Information Commissioner's Office but recorded centrally within the Department are set out in the table below. Small, localised incidents are not recorded centrally and are not cited in these figures.
Category Nature of incident Total
I Loss of inadequately protected electronic equipment, devices or paper documents from secured Government premises - 0 (nil)
II Loss of inadequately protected electronic equipment, devices or paper documents from outside secured Government premises - 4 (four)
III Insecure disposal of inadequately protected electronic equipment, devices or paper documents - 0 (nil)
IV Unauthorised disclosure - 1 (one)
V Other - 0 (nil)
N.B. the carefully worded "inadequately protected devices or paper documents"
How many of the 10,000 portable devices which NPIA have issued have been lost or stolen ?
It is hard to believe that none of them at all have gone missing.
These may or may not prove to be "adequately protected"
Some other points of interest in the report:
page 10
Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)
ANPR is the surveillance capability that uses mobile and fixed road-side sensors to read vehicle number plates and instantaneously cross-match them with information and intelligence held on the Police National Computer and linked systems
25,000 hits per day against the ANPR database that generate a transaction against the PNC
Officers responding to ANPR activations deliver three times more offences brought to justice
No mention of the lack of any statutory basis,, or even Public or Parliamentary debate about the setting up of this National ANPR Database.
IMPACT Nominal Index
INI is a national index of 59 million records. It provides a searchable list of names appearing in key operational systems. to improve the management and sharing of information and intelligence across the police service.
66 UK organisations now access the index.
The number of records held on INI has increased significantly from approx 61 million in April 2008 to approx 69 million in March 2009.
The number of searches on INI has seen an increase from 42,747 (April 2008) to 78,912 searches conducted in March 2009.
Note how the number of organisations has now crept up beyond the number of actual Police Forces
There is no mention of how late and overbudget this IMPACT project is , compared with what was originally promised.
ViSOR Dangerous Persons' Database
ViSOR provides a UK-wide shared database of information and intelligence on dangerous persons, making full details visible to officers wherever an
offender travels.There are now over 77,000 nominal records of named individuals maintained on the database, allowing police forces, prison and probation services to access ViSOR to jointly manage those individuals who pose a risk of serious harm.ViSOR Dangerous Persons' Database
Police National Computer (PNC)The national information system used as a critical tool by the police and law enforcement agencies, run by the NPIA.
The PNC holds over :
- 9.2 million nominal (people) records
- 52 million driver records
- 55 million vehicle recordsPNC usage in the 12 months ending April 2009 was approximately 185 million transactions
page 11
National DNA Database
The DNA Database is used by the police to identify offenders and eliminate people from enquiries.On average, the database provides the police with over 3,100 suspect-to-scene matches each month
[...]
In 2008/09, an estimated total of 34,280* crimes were detected in which a DNA match
was available and/or played a part in solving the crime, a projected increase of four per cent on 2007/08.Between April 1998 to September 2008, there have been approximately 290,000 detections in which a DNA match was available using the NDNA Database or played a part in solving the crime.
* Based on actual figures for Q1- 2 of 2008/09 projected for the full year
Note that these figures still do not give the information as to how many times DNA evidence has actually made any real difference in solving a crime.
Airwave
The availability of this essential police radio system for the year to April 2009 was above target at 99.93 per cent. It is the secure mobile digital radio replacement for conventional analogue radios allowing fast transfer of information and images
between patrolling officers and their stations. National services such as British Transport Police, the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency and other Emergency Services are amongst those who now have access to a system that can operate nationally and integrate with local forces. It will support integrated responses to major disasters and
incidents.Airwave has now been rolled out to the entire London Underground network, allowing police officers to move seamlessly from above to below ground. This enables police forces to better protect the public by responding to major incidents and events wherever they are on the network; the Airwave system is availableto all the emergency services.
It is good news that Airwave finally covers all of the London Underground stations now, but is it limited to voice only connections ?
Is there really enough bandwidth underground for bandwidth hungry video and image data transfers ?
IDENT1
IDENT1 is the national repository of finger and palm prints taken from offenders to be matched against prints found at scenes of crime.
Produces 85,000 identifications a year from crime scene prints, assisting the police service in carrying out investigations
Verifies over 1.5 million arrestee identifications per year
Checks more than 2,000 identities from Lantern mobile devices per month saving officer time
Checks over 40,000 identities per week for the UK Border Agency, helping to ascertain if visa applicants are known by UK police.
page 50
The Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) Back Office Facility (BOF) II system has now been deployed to all but one force. The implementation of this system means that all these forces in England and Wales now have the ability to supply data to the National ANPR Data Centre.
The ANPR infrastructure has the capability to receive and store 50 million ANPR reads per day. The National ANPR Data Centre (NADC) receives around 8 million reads per day. In due course, Scottish forces and PSNI will also be connected to NADC, as will other national policing and security agencies. These include British Transport Police, Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the
Security Service.A pilot police force is using a piece of internally developed software, which is built into their ANPR system to enhance operational efficiency, to send text messages or emails directly to senior investigation officers when a target vehicle is recorded through an ANPR system.
page 56
We are leading the programme to connect the UK to the second generation Schengen Information
System in time for 2012. When complete this will allow UK police forces to share and access a European data system that holds alerts on wanted and missing people, stolen vehicles, and certain categories of property.
Also linked to cross-boundary information sharing, last year we carried out a Scoping Study to look at implementation of the Prüm programme. Prüm provides for the
cross-border sharing/availability of DNA, fingerprints and motor vehicle registration data on a 24/7 basis. It is designed to intensify cross-border police co-operation, especially in the fight against terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal migration.
What exactly will be shared via the "the Prüm programme", to what level of detail, and to whom exactly ?
page 64
In 2009/10 the National DNA Database and associated services will be transferred from the Forensic Science Service (FSS) to NPIA in order to enhance the security and disaster recovery of the database. This will involve the corresponding staff from the FSS.
N.B.there is still no mention of any Police computer programme or Training scheme, to integrate with the National Identity Register.
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