The high-tech, automated fingerprint identification system of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service has crashed, rendering thousands of job and visa applicants unable to get their certificates of good character for which they have already paid.
By Robert AlonzoThe system stores the personal database of everyone charged with a criminal offence in T&T.
A spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday that the network failure also resulted in many police investigators being unable to verify if people arrested for criminal offences had pending cases or criminal records.
It is customary that in every lower court throughout T&T, presiding magistrates request police prosecutors and/or investigators to check the antecedents of accused people, if bail is to be fixed.
The source said the problem existed in all nine police divisions, including Tobago.
Personnel of the Criminal Records Office and fingerprint detectives assigned to all nine divisions said yesterday the system went down recently, and they claimed that no effort was made to address the situation.
Some angry officers said they had to revert to the old, tardy, manual system of checking people?s fingerprints to ascertain whether they had any criminal records or pending cases.
A senior officer said because of the crime problem, employers were requesting certificates of good character from job applicants.
He said with this new security measure, almost all police divisions had been flooded with hundreds of applications for such certificates, apart from the many hundreds seeking US visas.
A certificate of good character costs $50, and each division received approximately 150 to 200 applications per week.
He said the police were unable to deliver the certificates to applicants, causing candidates to become annoyed.
?We have gone back about 18 years, due to the breakdown of the system,? one officer said yesterday.
Another said officers who accessed the system and prepared certificates noticed a hardware component problem in the computer software about two months ago.
He said officers brought the problem to the attention of those responsible, but they were ignored.
They also suggested that a back-up system be installed, but this was not done.
Neither Ken Martin, the IT manager of the Police Service, nor ASP Terry Young, of the Criminal Records Office, could be reached for comment up to late yesterday.
Deputy Police Commissioner Winston Cooper, however, confirmed the problem and said it was being addressed.
