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Sarasota Upgrades To $1.2 Million New Fingerprinting System

SARASOTA (CBSMiami/AP) — A new form of technology has made its way into the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office Wednesday which will hopefully make fingerprinting a little easier.

The unique new fingerprinting system is used to help sheriffs snag criminals faster and improve algorithms.

The $1.2 million technology upgrade is the first of its kind to be activated in the world and is simple to use.

A latent print examiner would take a picture or scan the finger or palm print card that was taken from a crime scene and identify out specific points in the print. The print will then be scanned on the system.

Within a minute, the examiner will know whether the print matches one of 500,000 fingerprints in the sheriff's database. If it doesn't, the examiner will run a search of the databases used by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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