Benchmarking the operational search accuracy of a national identification system

摘要

This paper reports on some of the challenges associated with setting up and conducting a full operational benchmark of a palm and fingerprint identification system, based on PITO's own recent experience in this field. The tests described were undertaken as part of the overall evaluation of suppliers tendering for a multi million pound contract to deliver a new national automated fingerprint service for the UK (known as IDENT1), as a successor to the existing systems, both in England and Wales, and in Scotland. The emphasis throughout was on 'operationally' representative testing and it was this that determined the design and scale of the tests, which PITO believes are the largest such tests of a national AFIS ever undertaken. The knowledge gained from performing these benchmark tests has provided PITO with extremely valuable experience in both the theoretical and practical issues surrounding the design and conduct of operational tests on large scale identification systems, and it is these issues that are discussed in this paper.