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From the General Manager's
Desk
Thank you
for helping BIO-Key
achieve another strong year in
Public Safety in 2007. With
more than 1000 agencies now
using our MobileCop® and
PocketCop® offerings, we
continue to develop, enhance and
deliver industry leading
solutions to the mobile
marketplace. Your input
provides us with one of our
strongest assets and key driver
for success. Based on that user
feedback we're taking our annual
Law Enforcement User Training
Conference "on the road" in
2008, with one-day training
workshops currently planned in
Texas and Oklahoma and in the
Midwest, Mid Atlantic and New
England regions.
Agenda and registration
information for those sessions
will be sent to customers in
those states via email. If
there's a workshop in your area,
please join us and your
colleagues in a hands-on
learning environment sharing
best practices designed to help
you maximize your officer
productivity.
John
Allman, Technology Coordinator
for the Brentwood , TN Police
Department and one of our
Customer Advisory Board
(CAB) members, is also
co-hosting a one-day user
training workshop in
Brentwood, TN on Monday, May 5th.
That date immediately precedes
the national
IACP Law Enforcement Information
Management (LEIM) Conference,
held this year at Gaylord
Opryland Resort and Convention
Center in nearby Nashville, May
6-10. Unlike some other
conferences where IT is just one
track or a few sessions on the
agenda, the entire focus of the
LEIM Conference is sharing best
practices and lessons learned in
the use of public safety
technology, including mobile
computing and biometrics. In
addition, the Conference
exposition brings together in
one place virtually all of the
public safety software and
hardware companies - including
BIO-key.
There's no
charge for the BIO-key training
session in Brentwood, and I'd
like to invite BIO-key customers
around the country who are
not located close to one of our
other local workshops (or who
find the May site and date more
convenient) to participate with
us. Attending both the BIO-key
training and the LEIM Conference
is certainly giving your agency
more "bang for the buck" in
terms of travel costs, and if
you were budgeting for a BIO-key
user training conference
registration this year you can
apply that to the LEIM
Conference fees.
If you'd
like to get more information on
the Brentwood, TN user training
workshop on May 5th, please
click here and we'll send
you more information.
I hope to see you there or at
one of our other local sessions.
Best
Regards,
Ken Souza |
PocketCop CAD Integration Now
Available at No Additional Cost
BIO-key is pleased to announce
that
PocketCop
users can now have the same
two-way connectivity to your CAD
system that MobileCop users get
(if you have an interface
between InfoServer and CAD). The
PocketCop client can receive
information directly from CAD
and send status updates and
changes to CAD. This has been
the enhancement most often
requested from our customers,
who want to be able to dispatch
PocketCop users and monitor
their status exactly as they do
through MobileCop.
"It exceeded every expectation
we had," reported Glen Pettit,
lead Information Technology
Analyst for the St. Paul (MN)
Police Department, which
beta tested the new feature.
"The CAD integration allows PDA
devices much of the same
functionality as our officers
enjoy from laptops via
MobileCop."
CAD integration is available at
no additional cost on both
BlackBerry and Windows Mobile
platforms. If you're a current
PocketCop customer interested in
providing this new feature to
your users,
contact
David Finchum,
Law Enforcement Product Manager,
for information and next steps.
If you're not a PocketCop
customer today, but think this
may be the right time to get
onboard, call us at
800.400.6311.
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 BIO-key
Customers in the News
Sergeant John
Israel of the Washington County
(MN) Sheriff's Office authored a
case study,
published in the November issue of
Public Safety IT magazine, on
leveraging multiple RF and cellular
networks to provide more bandwidth
and better service for MobileCop
users.
Oklahoma County (OK) Sheriff's
Department
Sergeant (and BIO-key CAB
member) Matt Jackson was recently
featured in a
televised report
on how investigators, motorcycle
officers and other specialty units
are using PocketCop on BlackBerry
smartphones to stay informed and in
touch.
Congratulations to the
Newport News Police Department
and Louisiana State Police,
who were selected as semi-finalists
for the 2007 Webber Seavey Award.
The program, co-sponsored by IACP
and Motorola, annually honors a
select number of state and local law
enforcement agencies for projects
that achieve one or more program
goals, including "enhancing
communications within and
cooperation among agencies."
Applications for the 2008 Award are
due on May 1, 2008.
Click here
for information and application
guidelines. Winners receive two
complimentary registrations for the
IACP Annual Conference (in San
Diego), including airfare and hotel. |
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 Dark
Screen Security Feature for
MobileCop Available
We
recently announced the new
MobileCop NCIC Display,
which gives users query results
in a consistent, easy-to-view
summary format on a single
screen. But
Bill Goodwin
and his team didn't stop there.
Now, also available at no cost
to BIO-key maintenance
customers, we offer a "dark
screen" security feature for all
summary screen displays,
including the new NCIC Display.
When this feature is activated,
the summary screen will go dark
at a pre-defined time interval
since the last screen was
activated.
Initially requested by the
Delaware County (OH) Sheriff's
Office for compliance with
state CJIS security regulations,
the dark screen ensures that
query responses (and any
personal data) are not
unintentionally viewable if the
officer is out of the car. The
time interval is configurable
and can be set and changed only
by the system administrator.
Bill recommends a two-minute
interval as a good starting
point.
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 Product
Spotlight:
InfoExchange™ Now
Provides Access to Multiple RMS
Databases
A new update to
InfoExchange, BIO-key's solution
for mobile access to RMS and other
data sources, now includes support
for an unlimited number of RMS and
other databases at a single site,
such as a multi-agency InfoServer
site. Data access can be filtered by
agency, letting the administrator
control which agencies can "see"
which databases. Incident
involvement has been added to the
person detail response, so the user
can easily distinguish between a
victim and suspect in an incident.
The Oklahoma County (OK)
Sheriff's Office recently
deployed InfoExchange. According to
Sergeant Matt Jackson, the
connection to the County's RMS
provides law enforcement personnel
in thirteen agencies with greater
insight into the persons they are
dealing with at a traffic stop or
other incident. The information is
populated in the NCIC summary window
so the officer requires no
additional training in operation of
the queries. Without the need to
involve the RMS vendor, deployment
was rapid and economical with a
simple software install and
configuration.
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 New Customer
Spotlight: MobileRescue™
Key to Inter-agency Information
Sharing in Dubuque
Dubuque
(IA) Fire Department
recently joined its sister
agency, the Dubuque Police
Department, as a BIO-key
customer. The Fire Department
has deployed
MobileRescue,
BIO-key's wireless mobile data
solution for fire and emergency
response, in the agency's fire
apparatus, ambulances and
command vehicles.
"Dispatchers love it," said
Assistant Fire Chief Rick
Steines, who wrote the
successful Department of
Homeland Security Assistance to
Firefighters Grant (AFG)
application that funded the new
system. "With MobileRescue's
interface to the county's CAD
system, they know the current
status of every unit."
A key
factor behind Dubuque's
selection of MobileRescue was
the ability of the city's fire
and rescue agencies to
communicate directly with police
department MobileCop users, who
also respond to most calls for
service.
For a
limited time, MobileRescue can
be deployed without purchasing
additional server seat licenses,
which minimizes the cost impact
on a law enforcement agency or
regional communications center
providing a hosting service for
fire and rescue. For more
information, call 800.400.6311.
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 Federal
Grants Update
The FY08 Omnibus Appropriations
Act, signed by the President on
December 26th, allocates $170
million for the Byrne/Justice
Assistance Grants (JAG) program
(a 67% reduction from $520
million in FY07). For more
information, see the
Grants
page
on our website.
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 Neosho
Streamlines Citations Issuance with
APS QuickTicket
In November,
Neosho (MO) Police
Department
joined the growing
list of MobileCop
customers adopting
QuickTicket™ ,
the electronic
citations solution
from BIO-key partner
Advanced Public
Safety (APS).
QuickTicket is the
only solution that
lets officers import
return DMV data onto
the electronic
ticket directly from
a MobileCop query.
They can issue
tickets quickly with
just a few clicks,
and even print a
paper citation
on-scene (with a
compatible remote
printer).
Finally, instead of
a paper ticket
requiring more data
entry and storage,
the completed
electronic form can
be automatically
uploaded to the
department's RMS and
city court
databases. "The
system eliminates
re-keying
information two or
three times,
improving overall
efficiency,
according to Neosho
Police Chief Dave
McCracken. "It also
lets our officers
clear traffic stops
faster, which
improves safety on
the roadside."
For more
information, call
800.400.6311.
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 Upcoming
Events
In the
next three months you'll find us at:
o
South Carolina Law
Enforcement Division CJIS Users
Conference:
January 27-31, Myrtle Beach, SC
o
Indiana Chiefs of
Police Mid-Winter Conference:
January 30-February 1, Indianapolis,
IN
o East
Coast APCO Conference:
March 17-21, Myrtle Beach, SC
o
Texas Police Chiefs
Association Conference: March 18-21,
Austin, TX
o
Massachusetts Chiefs
of Police Association Trade Show:
March 26, Marlborough, MA
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BIO-key Newsletters Now Available
Online
Looking
for information you remember
reading in a past Newsletter
edition? You can
click here or just go to
"Newsletters" under "News and
Events" on the BIO-key home page
to access recent Law Enforcement
Newsletters. We've also posted
the most recent edition of our
Biometrics Newsletter on the
site.
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