SAGEM has recenly signed a contract with the Secretariat General of the INternational Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) for the purchase of SAGEM new generation Automated Fingerprint Identification System to be installed within the headquaters of the organisation, in Lyon.

This state-of-the-art AFIS technology will automate the management of the INTERPOL fingerprint collection of ten-prints and latents. The 177 member countries of INTERPOL will also be able torequest fingerprint searches via the organisation would wide network. The SAGEM AFIS will be integrated within the INTERPOL Criminal Information System (ICIS) whic will allow the Organisation to deliver automatically to the requesting National Central Bureaux comlete and accurate responses to their identification request.

The system will benefit from SAGEM's latest technological advances in AFIS technology. This leading edge AFIS technology is embedded inside a system whose revolutionary top-to-bottom object oriented architecture provides a platform for the development of customised information systems with seamless integration of fingerprint and non-fingerprint applications such as portraits or criminal records management systems.

SAGEM is the leading AFIS supplier to the police forces, and has provided more that 40 national and state-wide AFIS in response to the challenges of organisations varying greatly both in terms of structure and territorial reach.

SAGEM is also the undisputed world leader in the provision of civil AFIS. Successful implementations of many large-scale systems for welfare applicaitons, civil registration and identity card projects, demonstrate SAGEM and its subsidiary SAGEM MORPHO Inc's ability to meet the challenges of people administration.

As a result SAGEM Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems manage more than 100 million sets of person identification data throughout the world, providing identification services through several thousand enquiry workstation.

SAGEM Group is French group of high-technology companies. The Group employs 14,500 people and had a consolidated turn over of FRF 18.8 billion in 1998.