Cloud Computing Reveals Number Plate Details

Officers in the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service have led the way in testing a commercial infrastructure that gives federal officers the same access to law enforcement databases that their state and local counterparts have had for years.

Until recently, the only way these officers had of doing criminal record checks on individuals, checking vehicle registrations and looking up other law enforcement data was to go through the dispatchers of state and local police departments. “We don’t have our own dispatch system,” said FWS zone officer David Nicely. “Our officers primarily work alone because there aren’t that many of us [and] we tie up their systems.”

But for the past year, officers in the FWS’ Northeast Region 5 have been able to use a suite of mobile applications from InterAct Public Safety to access law enforcement databases directly through laptops in their cars and through their BlackBerry phones.