Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the vice president, has given the Ghana Police Service assurances that the government’s move toward digitalisation will equip them with more sophisticated instruments to advance their policing, benefiting society as a whole.
The Vice President said the digital drive has enormous benefits for all swathes of society, including the police service, who will now have access to cutting-edge policing tools used throughout the world to make their jobs easier. He was speaking at a donation of mobile devices and software packages to the police service.
“We are going to see more and more devices in the hands of police officers across the country so that policing will be very effective in Ghana and this is something that Ghana and the Ghana police service will be proud of because we’re moving into an area where in fact many advanced countries are still trying to get into that area,” Dr Bawumia said.
The Vice President was speaking on Friday, December 23rd 2022 as Margins Group, an indigenous Ghanaian Identity Systems Company, donated over $2 million worth of mobile identification devices and a Mobile Device Management System to the Police Service.
These mobile devices and systems will capture the unique biometric and biographic information of individuals, verify vehicle registration, drivers license, road worthiness certificate and insurance, and match the data against other databases including the National Identification Authority’s database.
The devices will give police officers real- time access to data on individuals, vehicles, criminal histories etc. and therefore help in the fight against crime.
‘’If you’re going to benefit from digitalisation, you cannot allow the system that you’re setting up to sit in silos. You have to integrate the systems so that you can benefit from knowing if you’re in a crime database and you integrate it with the national ID database, you can tell when you meet somebody who is on the crime database that this person is either a criminal or someone who is wanted,” Dr Bawumia said.
“So the issue of integration of the police database with the NIA database is very important. With these devices (mobile device software) it is very important that when the Police meet you on the street they can tell who you are with or without your Ghana card.
“They can tell if you’re wanted or not. They can tell whether the vehicle you’re driving is registered or not because you’re linking the databases. So it is a valuable weapon in the fight against crime and the protection of the public and the safety of the public.”
The Veep added that this is just the beginning of efforts to equip the Police Service with more gadgets, devices and software to exploit digitalisation to enhance crime fighting.
The Inspector General of Police, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, was visibly excited about the donation and expressed optimism that how it will help the men in uniform as part of the police transformation agenda.
“We can’t wait to use them because we know it will transform Policing in Ghana.” Dampare said.