Law Enforcement Evolved: police using Google Glass and Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanners to fight crime

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Law Enforcement Evolved: police using Google Glass and Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanners to fight crime

With Google Glass finding a home in many different professional fields each and everyday, it was only a matter of time before law enforcement started to see its potential. Gulf News is reporting that traffic police in Dubai are starting to be issued Google Glass units to test a new system that allows them to take photos of speedsters and easily capture their license plates to run through a database.

The system is being trickled in as a trial for now, but Dubai Police Colonel Khalid Nasser Al Razooqi says they will seriously look to roll this system out on a wider, more official basis should things go well. “We at Dubai Police always try to adopt what is new in the market and we like to stay up-to-date,” said Col Al Razooqi, who acts as their general of smart services.

Glass obviously won’t be ideal for all law enforcement situations — trying to look at a tiny monitor while chasing down a suspect on foot or in the car is highly dangerous — but it sounds like it could have enough of an impact on their operations to be a valuable tool.

Then we spin the globe all the way over to Holland, where Dutch police are rumored to be teaming up with Samsung to provide officers with Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphones that can scan and identify fingerprints using its built-in fingerprint scanner.

This functionality obviously isn’t built into the Samsung Galaxy S5 by default, so they’re said to be cooking up custom applications for the task using Samsung’s SDK. The devices will also reportedly be loaded with apps that will allow the officers to scan badges, documents and licenses, as well as issue a ticket digitally.

All of this is to say one thing: if mobile tech wasn’t already identified as being important in recent years, then you can bet it is now. It’s important enough that it’s finding its way into a number of unrelated professions, and being used to make the lives of the professionals working them even easier, and important enough that countries are looking to use it in military to defend their nations. Not many other sects of personal electronics can boast that, and it sounds like all of it is here to stay (even if much of the world is having a difficult time accepting it).

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