The sheriff of Barnstable County, Mass., James Cummings, has announced that he has received a four-in-one biometric system to help track criminals and missing persons as well as connect the department’s data with a number of national databases. The new system was able to be purchased due to a $10,000 grant from the National Sheriff’s Association and will also benefit neighboring Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department as well as the Brockton Police Department.

The different systems comprising the four-in-one solution are the Child Project, which is used to track missing children; the Senior Safety Net, which is used to track missing senior citizens; the Inmate Recognition and Identification System, which tracks inmates biometrically as they enter prisons and Sex Offender Recognition and Information System, which tracks members of sex offender registries biometrically. The system operates off of iris recognition, which is regularly rated as more reliable, more fool-proof and more expensive than the more common fingerprint-based systems in the biometrics industry.

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