St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Breaks New Ground With Use of Iris Scanning Identification

Identification of individuals by law enforcement through electronic scans of their irises has been found only in Hollywood-based police shows. Until now. St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain recently unveiled new devices and software being used to identify and confirm sex offenders throughout the parish using this very technology.

The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office was one of the first law enforcement agencies in the nation to use this technology and was the first agency to integrate its use into a sex offender registry.

In cooperation with BI2 Technologies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office has installed iris scanning devices in its sex offender registry office and in the St. Tammany Parish Jail. Four MORIS mobile devices are also being put into service in the field.

The devices provide positive identification of individuals through electronic analysis of the person’s iris. During an initial baseline scan, high resolution cameras capture short videos of the eyeball, then process that video to extract certain identifiable characteristics, which are then stored in a national database. After the baseline scan has been captured, that person’s identity can be verified in near real-time during subsequent scans.

Irises, like fingerprints, are unique to an individual.  This new technology provides a fast (virtually instantaneous) and extremely reliable method of establishing positive identification.

Currently, every person booked into the St. Tammany Parish Jail undergoes an iris scan. If the individual is not already in the database, this serves as their baseline scan. If they were previously scanned, this acts as another facet of our identification protocol during the booking process. Iris scanning has also been made an integral part of the release process, ensuring that the inmate being released from jail is the correct person.

The iris scanning software has been fully integrated with Offender Watch, our sex offender database software. When sex offenders come to the Sheriff’s Office for periodic registration (mandated by state law), they undergo an iris scan to confirm their identity. The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office goes beyond state registration requirements by making quarterly checks of individuals at their homes in order to confirm their claimed residence. The four mobile units will allow deputies performing these checks to immediately confirm the identity of a sex offender, making it impossible for a relative or acquaintance to pretend to be the offender in their absence.

“Making positive identification on people going through the legal system is a must. With this latest technology we are able to confirm these individuals’ identities with 100% certainty, resulting in a safer environment for our deputies and our citizens,” said Sheriff Strain.

Miami-Dade County and IBM Establish Public-Private Partnership on Smarter Cities Initiative

Collaboration helps government harness Big Data to serve residents more efficiently and save taxpayer dollars

ARMONK, New York - 04 Mar 2013: Miami-Dade County and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a transformational Smarter Cities initiative to improve services for residents and help agencies share information among the 35 municipalities within the county.

A model for the rest of the nation, the County is using Big Data analytics -- managing large datasets from multiple sources -- and cloud computing to help leaders make better decisions.

With a focus on cutting across organizational boundaries to provide better services to residents, IBM is helping Miami-Dade County modernize and improve the predictive management capabilities of systems tied to law enforcement, transportation and water. Through the use of an intelligent dashboard from IBM that provides visibility into operations, city and county leaders will soon be able to harvest massive amounts of information from one department and immediately share it with multiple departments to improve access to valuable and often time-sensitive information.

“Making Miami-Dade County more efficient and cutting the red tape that slows economic progress are priorities, and this initiative with IBM is a great way to accomplish both of those goals,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez. “We look forward to making vital data more accessible to our municipal partners and to serving our residents even better.” 

As Miami-Dade County faces shrinking budgets, aging infrastructure and the need to deliver more services with fewer resources – all while driving economic development and job creation – the County is working to solve some of its biggest problems through advanced technology and public-private partnerships. 

Miami-Dade County is delivering value to residents through a series of interlocked initiatives that use the new system to help departments across the county collaborate and share information. These initiatives are:

·    Water Management -- A predictive analytics and smart metering project to help remotely monitor consumption and identify water leaks across the Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces Department is expected to reduce water consumption by 20% and generate up to $1 million in savings per year which can be reallocated back into parks services for residents.

·    Intelligent Policing -- Technology for intelligence analysis, lead generation and criminal identification and investigation is helping Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) reduce the time it takes officers to identify leads, investigate crimes and solve cases and remove barriers to information sharing with other law enforcement agencies.

·    Government Transparency -- Consolidated analytics across finance, human resources, budgeting, planning and all transactional departments provide county employees access to reporting and analysis tools to help make better decisions. The cloud-based system also provides the county’s three million residents financial transparency and access to key metrics and detailed spending information via the Internet.

·    Transportation Efficiency -- Providing real-time updates via new mobile phone applications and applying analytics to better understand traffic patterns and ridership on public transit will help prepare for future growth without investing in new infrastructure projects. A pilot transportation project will help improve traffic flow and drive economic development for local business in the Brickell community through increased ridership on public transit and bringing more people into the county's parks. 

"Miami-Dade County is an example of how local government leaders are coming together and overcoming traditional barriers to find innovative solutions to the challenges of growth," said Michael J. Dixon, PhD, general manager, IBM Smarter Cities. "Many cities around the world are reaching their limits and they are looking for ways to make their region more competitive and provide higher level of services to citizens. Miami-Dade County's leaders are demonstrating the vision and ambition to bring their community together to improve the efficiency of one of the world’s most prominent counties." 

Miami-Dade County is a dynamic global community known for its diverse economy and its diverse people. Led by Mayor Gimenez, this technology initiative is helping Miami-Dade County further position itself as a global center of commerce and finance. It is also helping the county attract a growing technology community that is working closely with local leaders to help Miami-Dade County’s future economy. 

The county uses IBM Global Business Services, Research and Software analytics technology found in IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities. The county is also using SPSS predictive analytics software, Cognos business intelligence software, i2 Intelligent Law Enforcement solution, a private cloud system on zLinux hosted on an IBM System z mainframe and IBM PureFlex System. 

About Miami-Dade County

With more than 2.5 million residents, Miami-Dade County is the most populous county in the southeastern United States and the seventh largest in the nation by population. Miami-Dade County operates under a Strong Mayor, who is responsible for the leadership and management of an organization with over 25,000 employees and an annual budget of nearly $6 billion, form of government; and the 13-member Board of County Commissioners is the legislative body. 

About IBM

For more information on IBM Smarter Cities, visit www.ibm.com/press/smartercities.

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