The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office has a new tool for identifying and cataloguing criminal history, in the form of a new digital LiveScan Fingerprint machine.

The device was provided to the County by the Iowa Department of Public Safety at no cost, and has already been put to use. The fingerprint scanner is the latest generation of Automated Biometric Identification Systems, and provides multiple options for information acquisition and identification. They typically cost nearly $20,000. Dallas was one of ten counties chosen to receive the new machines, which were awarded through a National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) grant given to the Iowa DPS in 2014. The County was identified as a location conducting frequent fingerprint scans, using an out of date machine.

The Sheriff’s Office also had a say in the vendor that would supply the machines to the DPS, as Sergeant Adam Howard was selected to the review panel. Howard and the rest of the panel wound up choosing Idemia for the State contract for live scans, and the devices were recently delivered to each of the participating agencies.