The latest version of the Digital Image Booth will be used by Hertfordshire Constabulary at ten sites, allowing officers to take high-quality pictures of detainees for use in the Facial Images National Database (FIND).
Force custody project manager, CI Richard Beechey, said he thinks the booths will help improve policing performance across the county.
“It is clear that the Digital Image Booth is an efficient and cost-effective solution that will help us to meet FIND standards and improve our custody management,” he said.
The booths integrate a PC, built to police specifications, with a toughened 15″ touch-screen and drop down keyboard, and are being marketed as a totally self-contained image capture unit.
According to manufacturer DW Group, custody staff will be able to quickly capture quality-checked images and input the required data before sending it to a main operating system.
Steve Raines, who monitored a trial at the constabulary’s custody centre in Stevenage, said training people to use the booths is very simple and that his team was fully-operational “virtually straight away”.
“Many of our previous images were very poor due to user error and outdated equipment, but after only two weeks using the booth we had captured 300 images with more than 95 per cent of images being FIND-compliant on the first take,” he said.
Excluding VAT, each booth costs GB pound 7,950.
