Up to 60 Northern Territory police cars will be fitted out with iPad tablets to speed up vehicle and personal identification checks which are currently done manually.
The tablets will allow officers to check registrations or names themselves rather than radioing the details into the NT Police communications centre. The iPads will be used during patrols in urban areas of Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs.
An additional 10 iPads will be issued to frontline officers, including mounted police, which link into police databases allowing officers to access forms in the field.
A NT Government spokeswoman told Computerworld Australia that eight tablets are already being trialled with the full roll out of 70 devices expected to be complete in the next two months.
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NT Chief Minister Adam Giles said the use of iPads is part of a push to improve public services.
“Fitting out NT Police with the latest tools of the trade gives instant access to information while freeing-up officers at the communications centre so that they can concentrate on answering calls from the public,” he said in a statement.
“Like all industries, if you don’t embrace technology you get left behind. This sort of technology is being used by police around the world and we need to keep up with the times.”
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