Transmitting mug shots and fingerprint images over wireless is the aim of the FBI’s $17 million-plus technology update program, but it comes at a time when government spectrum already is clogged.
“A picture is worth a thousand words, but it takes a lot more bandwidth to send. A picture uses up 100 times more airtime than does a 200-word description. The implication is that channel capacity is going to be the big issue,” said Robert Rouleau, president of Dataradio Corp. Dataradio will provide its Vehicular Information Solutions to the National Crime Information Center’s modernization program, NCIC 2000.
NCIC is the national crime data system operated by the FBI that pools all the nation’s crime records, including all vehicle thefts, arrest warrants, felony records, missing persons reports and more.
“A picture is worth a thousand words, but it takes a lot more bandwidth to send.”
Last February, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration gave up 50 megahertz of exclusively federal government spectrum to the Federal Communications Commission for reallocation to the private and public sector. The spectrum-2390-2400 MHz, 2402-2417 MHz and 4660-4685 MHz-is the first piece of a full 200 megahertz the NTIA intends to surrender, as required by the 1993 Congressional budget bill.
The FCC still is debating how to distribute the 50 megahertz, with an option of putting it on the potentially lucrative auction block.
One group pushing hard for a piece of the spectrum is the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International Inc. With more spectrum below 1 GHz and the technology of NCIC 2000, the nation’s law enforcement agencies can be more efficient and citizens will be better protected, APCO said.
“Current spectrum for just voice channels today is heavily congested, with police, firefighters and ambulance. If you start doing something like NCIC 2000, it eats up spectrum and you can’t do anything else,” said Robert Gurss, a Washington attorney representing APCO.
NCIC was established 27 years ago, and has operated primarily as voice and teletype traffic used by all of the nation’s law enforcement agencies. The system is used about one million times each day.
When a local police officer stops a vehicle, the officer contacts the local dispatching base and gives the vehicle tag number and the driver’s identification. The local dispatcher taps into the NCIC system with the data, and NCIC either locates a crime match or makes no finding.
Just because the data on the driver’s ID card clears the NCIC system doesn’t mean the driver isn’t a wanted criminal, said NCIC official David Nemecek in an article about law enforcement’s strong need for technology. The use of fraudulent identification is increasing and that is why there is a need for electronic image transmission of photographs and fingerprints, he said.
In some states, fingerprints are encoded in the magnetic strip on the driver’s license. The NCIC 2000 update would install receiving equipment into patrol cars so officers can receive fingerprint and photographic images at the scene and process information gathered there as well.
Nemecek outlined three successful FBI demonstrations of image transmission done in metropolitan Washington, D.C., Aurora, Colo. and Santa Barbara County, Calif.
In Washington, an FBI vehicle and two-way base station were used along with a centrally located optical disk unit for archival image storage interfaced to the host computer. The test included a remote workstation with a personal computer, a camera for mug shot scanning and capture, and a laser printer and fingerprint scanner that scanned inked fingerprints and converted them into digital images located in the patrol car.
A transceiver device was interfaced by modem to a dedicated line to the radio base station and a synchronous link went by a 56-kilobit line to the NCIC host computer.
In Aurora, the FBI transmitted fingerprint images to an Aurora patrol car equipped with a mobile digital terminal. The car received the images in about 35 seconds per frame and the photos were sharp in contrast. The test also proved the patrol car does not have to be motionless to receive or send good images.
In the California test, image equipment was attached to a 50-watt base radio operating over an antenna mounted on top of police headquarters and linked to NCIC headquarters in Washington.
The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office patrol car used a 60-watt push-to-talk two-way transceiver. Images were high quality and were transmitted at about the same speed as in the Aurora test.
Atlanta-based Dataradio will be installing vehicular systems by year’s end as part of the NCIC 2000 pilot phase in about 12,000 Department of Justice vehicles.
