Vision-Box modernizes criminal identification processes in Brazil

The Mato Grosso State Court of Justice is currently conducting a pilot program using a biometric enrollment solution to improve the personal identification processes in criminal hearings. A Vision-Box developed portable solution that allows the real-time collection of biometric and biographic data ensures an accurate verification of the enrolled person’s identity during all the stages of the hearings.

In Brazil, when a person is caught in the act of committing a crime, they are arrested and held for an immediate criminal hearing. This innovative process, launched in 2015 by the National Justice Council, ensures a speedy hearing for the individual before the judge, usually within 24 hours.

The extensive evaluation process to identify the person before the hearing was initially based on manual identification methods. To improve the process, Mato Grosso State recently chose Vision-Box™ to design and provide an integrated biographic and biometric enrollment solution to speed up the identification process.

vb e-pass portable is an integrated enrollment and verification solution that captures biographic and biometric data in real-time, allowing the Forensic Office of Technical Identification (POLITEC) technicians to capture instant face and profile photos, fingerprints, and digital signature from the prisoners, as well as all biographic data registered on their ID cards. As a further benefit to the identity process, additional pictures are taken of specific body marks, such as tattoos and scars, to add to the person’s ID file.

All this information is consolidated into a single personal profile that is associated with the arrested person, shared with the court house where the subsequent hearing take place, in addition to being stored in criminal databases at State and Federal level.

Since the beginning of the pilot, hundreds of identifications were processed using the biometric portable solution, enhancing the security of the identification procedure, ending data discrepancies of the suspect’s identity, and guaranteeing a consistency and improvement in the enrollment process. After identity verification, a doctor completes a medical exam, with a multidisciplinary team composed of a social worker, a psychologist, and a nursing technician, conducting a follow-up interview.

According to Aílton Machado, the POLITEC Metropolitan Director of Technical Identification, “This partnership aims to modernize the identification processes and guarantee an efficient and agile service delivery. The POLITEC technicians developed the pilot idea and helped to develop the solution along with Vision-Box™ Brazil as a way to build a system capable of being integrated in other Brazilian states, ensuring the biographic data capture provides an authenticity verification of the individual.”

The ease of use of the portable solution is guaranteed through an integrated and autonomous front-end platform – vb e-pass – that allows the operator to capture, visualize, and store the biographic and biometric data collection using an automated procedure. The software, specifically customized to conform to the project’s challenges, guarantees that the biometric collection and data processing are made in accordance with every ICAO and NIST international standards.

Leidivino Natal da Silva, Country Director of Vision-Box Brazil highlights that, “This solution is going to revolutionize the citizens’ identification processes in the Brazilian Justice system. Vision-Box™ is collaborating directly with official Justice authorities to guarantee the information’s authenticity that remains stored in official databases. On the one hand, it allows the authorities to take actions with total trust in the quality of the information. On the other hand, it assures society at large that their identity is protected in the Justice system, and that this system is really judging the true criminals”.