The Philippine National Police (PNP) has shifted to a digital way of gathering data on arrested law offenders in a bid to facilitate easy access on its crime data as part of its efforts to modernize the entire system in the organization.

Dubbed as the electronic booking or e-booking, PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin, Jr. said police investigators and intelligence operatives will now have easy access to the data storage system which covers arrested law offenders across the country.

“For many years, the PNP had been manually collecting information of arrested persons, but because of this initiative to deliver efficient and timely investigation service, the DIDM (Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management (DIDM) created this system that will fully digitalize the booking process of arrested persons,” said Azurin.

The booking procedures include getting the fingerprint and taking photos of the arrested law offenders.

Azurin said the collected data are stored in the PNP data system through the Automated Fingerprints Identification System, or AFIS.

“Through this, the collection and cross-matching of fingerprints will now be faster and more efficient,” said Azurin.

“This will further increase the crime solution efficiency of the Philippine National Police,” he added.

Why it is important

Once fully-implemented, Cruz said the e-booking would spare the PNP from buying special paper for fingerprints since it would already be done through fingerprint machine.

The e-booking, he said, would be linked to AFIS wherein the major source of inputs are from those who were previously arrested and those applying for police clearance.

Based on the PNP data, more or less 800 people are arrested daily while around 15,000 people apply for clearance daily--which means a plethora of fingerprint database for the PNP.

Aside from the fingerprints, the e-booking would also contain photos and other vital information from the law offenders already arrested.

Once fingerprints, for instance, are lifted in a crime scene, Cruz said they could be easily matched with those that are already in the PNP database.

"So when they lift fingerprints from the crime scene, immediately they will compare
it with the database of the AFIS. The Forensic Group said that with the digital database, they can already identify the person with that fingerprints," said Cruz.

"This is how effective it is. Instantly we can identify, we can compare the lifted latent prints
from the crime scene to the millions of fingerprints that we have at the Forensic Group through AFIS," he added.

This is a big boost to the crime investigation because compared before, the PNP would still sift through a large file of hard copies of fingerprints and consult experts for the matching.

Digital shift

The e-booking is one of the digitalization efforts of the PNP over the years.

Aside from the AFIS, the PNP also embarked in digital transformation of some of its systems that include the National Police Clearance System, the e-subpoena, the e-warrant and e-rogue. 

The National Police Clearance System provides a real-time verification of criminal records for those applying for police clearance which is needed in job applications and other government and private transactions.

Since its inception, a total of 647 wanted persons were arrested while applying for police clearance.

The e-subpoena is a web-based information system that facilitates issuances, expedites the transmission of subpoena issued by courts to police officers and monitors their compliance to the court order.

The e-subpoena was conceptualized amid the dismissal of the cases due to the non-appearance of police officers as witnesses, the main reason for the non-appearance is that the police officers are not notified by the court order.

The e-warrant, on the other hand, is an online database of arrest warrants issued by the court. The PNP conceptualized the system since the police are one of the main agencies tasked to arrest criminals. 

The e-rouge, on the other hand, is a web-based system wherein all police stations will have access to people who were ordered arrested by the courts for various cases. 

No private firm involved

The DIDM, currently headed by Police Maj. Gen. Eliseo Cruz, conceptualized the digital transformation with the help of IT experts of the PNP.

In his speech as guest of honor and speaker, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla lauded the PNP for coming up with digital system projects without contracting any private entity.

The e-booking for instance, according to Azurin, was a result of the hard work of the DIDM.

“I commend the directorate for investigation and detective management – through the leadership of Police Major General Eliseo DC Cruz, for being one of the paragons of excellence in the organization,” said Azurin in his speech during the flag-raising ceremony at Camp Crame in Quezon City on Monday, March 13.