At BAE Systems we help our government customers with complex, secure data engineering projects, delivered at scale.
We have a deep experience in how to turn data into actions and operational capability, to improve safety, reliability and value. Below is an example of how we’ve worked in collaborative partnership with the Home Office.
Few tools are as important as biometrics in preventing terrorism, strengthening law enforcement and supporting our immigration system. That’s why UK police forces across the country have long sought to deploy mobile biometrics identification devices.
Unfortunately, such devices had previously been expensive, difficult to use, and reliant on increasingly out-of-date technology – which is where the Home Office Biometrics (HOB) programme came in, supported by BAE Systems as its delivery partner.
- An application that’s 5-10% of the cost of the previous solution
- Over 1000 devices across 16 police forces
- Close collaboration with civil servants and contractors
- Police and Immigration Enforcement now have a new biometric solution that fingerprints and IDs suspects or victims on the spot

The two key elements of this solution include: integration of a ubiquitous commodity fingerprint reader, which is device agnostic, allowing officers to simply use a small plugin for their existing mobile devices, and a new backend service interface allowing forces to use the captured finger print to query the national collections.
As a result, more officers are now able to take fingerprints from individuals who they have reason to believe are withholding their identity, or are providing a false identity. This means they can make informed decisions on the spot about who to arrest, and who to let go.
Let us know if you would like more information about this project, or our other work.
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