Sheriff Jim Coats, the Executive Director of DHSMV, Electra Theodorides-Bustle, and Congressman Bill Young have announced the establishment of a new and innovative facial recognition partnership between the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

This partnership project is the first of its kind in the state and in the nation.

The pilot project will allow the Sheriff’s Office to interface with DHSMV and conduct a facial recognition query of subjects against the DHSMVs driver’s license records.

The DL images will be retained and managed by DHSMV. Only query results are returned to the Sheriff’s Office for use in the identification of suspects by deputies and detectives.

 “We are excited about this new partnership and feel it will be an extremely effective tool in our daily law enforcement work and in keeping our citizens safe,” said Sheriff Coats.

“Our partnership with Sheriff Coats reflects our ongoing commitment to enhancing the safety of our roadways and our community,” said Director Bustle. “By leveraging existing state resources, this program will enable law enforcement officers to quickly identify and arrest criminals, thwart identity theft and exonerate the innocent using state of the art technology.”

The facial recognition pilot project with DHSMV which went on-line in early August of 2009 is currently able to query DL records of two counties- Pinellas and Hillsborough. The Sheriff’s Office looks forward to future expansion.

The Pinellas Sheriff’s Office has had a facial recognition system in place since 2001. The establishment of the system was made possible with the assistance of  Congressman Bill Young, who secured the funding necessary to set up facial recognition.

Facial recognition is credited with numerous successful identifications, which have solved cases, lead to arrests and identified individuals encountered by deputies.

For further information please call the Public Information Office at (727) 582-6221.