One of the things I’m most appreciating from my classes this year, is the new practical skills I am learning. In my Theories of Work and Organisations class I am grouped with three other students for an essay project on the lives and experiences of workers. It requires us to each carry out an interview based on a questionnaire we’ve developed about our selected topic, which in our case has two aspects, technology and COVID-19. Working in a group for Uni has been a new experience for me that is not without its challenges. For someone who is used to charging ahead with what she thinks is the best course, I’ve needed to sit back and listen to the other group members and interject evenly with my own views, until we arrive at a consensus. It has taken time and patience but I’m actually pretty happy with our progress so far.
We all carried out our interviews in the last few days. I interviewed hubby about his job and was a little concerned my interviewing wasn’t up to scratch. I needed have worried. My interview took 40 minutes, and I made a transcript of it which H. checked for me. He even provided a glossary for some of the technical terms that came up during the session. Everyone in the group had quite a different approach with their interviews, none were anywhere near as long as mine!
The interview I did was quite interesting, I think because it goes into some detail about the processes used in police forensics.
INTRODUCTORY:
Could you tell us a little about your job title and the industry that you work in?
I’m employed by the Queensland Police, I’m a sworn officer. I work in forensic services, primarily the fingerprint bureau, which is one of the groups of the forensics services that are offered. Unlike TV, they’re all different sections. So ballistics is one section, fingerprints, DNA. We don’t do it all.
So, in your forensics position, what do you do typically do in your job?
My job is related primarily with fingerprints, so it can involve the collection, the processing, the development of fingerprints, as well as the comparison and identification of those prints
And what proportion of your time are you based in the office? Or do you work remotely?
I don’t work remotely but our office does have facilities to work remotely. When you say in the office well 100% of my time has been going to the office but it depends on the duties of the day as to whether I’m in the office all day or out.
So, there’s times when you’re working outside of the office in the field so to speak.
Well, that’s part of the collection of and development of fingerprints. I’m also trained in the advanced chemical techniques.
Did you have any other training or formal education for your role?
Training is provided by the service, I have a graduate certificate in forensic fingerprint investigation and in order to be eligible for that course, you’ve got to be a sworn police officer and completed your diploma of public safety policing.
Is your role permanent do you work, full-time?
Full-time.
IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON WORK:
Now, I’d like to move on to technology. In our working lives we’re seeing the automation of tasks through computers, robotics, digital technology. online platforms. I’d like to ask you some questions about how technology is used in your work. How much of your work would be reliant upon the use of technologies such as these?
When you say technology, I would have to say probably 90% of our work is technology based. That encompasses the use of a digital camera down to the final comparison, using computers, and even some of the development techniques. So, with technology in the fingerprint world, it’s always ongoing and changing. Somebody will develop some a new system. So, if you talk basic technology, we have things like polilight, lasers, fuming cabinets and chemicals. Then somebody will develop a method of using fingerprints, developing fingerprints with a chemical. We also use databases and computers and digital cameras.
So quite a bit of your role requires technology and you’ve mentioned some changes. Are there any other specific changes that you’ve noticed in your time in the role?
Changes are always happening. The days of the old looking through the magnifying glass are gone. So once upon a time, fingerprint analysis was done, scenes of crime person would go out and take the ordinary old camera with film, they’d take a photo, the photos they’d process them, then the negatives and then the photos would be sent to the fingerprint bureau. Then the comparison would be made by using, without getting too detailed, what was called the Henry system, which is a classification system for fingerprints. Now that system involved counting numbers, minutiae and you would go into the big storeroom of file paper prints, find all of the forms that match the criteria of the print you were looking for and then you come out and compare them all. Now with computers it gets scanned onto the computer so we can run it through the national database. We can have an answer in 20 minutes.
Thanks for explaining that. So, during your time in the role, has there been any shift in the skills or training that are required?
Skills, the training is still the same, some of it is very outdated, things like learning the Henry classification. It’s not something we use but you still have to learn it. Not that there’s not a need for it, it’s still useful but the emphasis has changed. So, whilst we very rarely are called on to use the Henry system you may find that you may still have to use it. Most of it’s all now done with the central database and central names index. Everything links together. So that’s changed things, and other things like in the labs, using a laser. We now can find fingerprints under paint. We can find fingerprints that 20 years ago couldn’t be found. We also work with DNA. DNA has in the last 20 years come so much further than what it was. So, DNA can sort of, give us an idea of who to look for if we’ve got the prints on file and vice versa.
Okay, so your training is taking you into other fields, related fields?
No, we complement one another. To be a fingerprint specialist it always helps to know how your other sections work. So, we complement each other. Whilst we don’t necessarily do each other’s job we complement each other, and it does sometimes pay to have a working knowledge of another section’s methodologies. A prime example would be a fingerprint in blood, they need to be able to collect a specimen to run the DNA, but they need to know how not to destroy the prints so that we can make the comparison. Or if we find the print, we have to know what not to put on it. Certain chemicals will destroy DNA. We have to know what not to do in order for them to get what they need.
Can you tell me how your work is supervised and how and by whom is, it supervised?
Our work is supervised, we’ve got a chain of command. So, we’ve got senior sergeants senior experts, we’ve got sergeants who are experts and then we’ve got trainees. All, essentially all experts supervise trainees, and to prevent wrong identifications, we all sort of supervise each other. So, in order for an identification to be valid verified, it’s not good enough for me just to say, yes, I think that fingerprint’s that person, it then has to go to another expert who checks it and goes, I agree with, me. Their work then gets checked and a third person then goes, I agree. So once all three are in agreement it gets processed. If there’s any doubt other experts are called in, and then a final decision’s made by senior experts as to whether or not that is an identification.
Can you explain how the role of the computers and databases is assisting you through that process of the work being checked?
Okay. This gets very complex. I’ll try and keep it as simple as possible, it’s probably easier if I give you an overview of how the whole system works rather than try and explain one part of the system. Generally, most people understand, house gets broken into, they call the police, the police come. They take their report or, again modern technology – now people can ring it through when the police don’t even need to attend. If there’s a possibility that we can develop fingerprints, DNA, or we need photographs, a Scenes of Crime Officer will go to the scene. Depending on the seriousness, maybe a Fingerprint Officer will go the scene. Scenes of crime officers are trained in a broad collection method, so they know how to swab the DNA, they know how to powder for fingerprints. They know how to take photos; they’re trained with all of that. Now they carry a computer with them, what we call the ToughBook because that’s the brand name, but their computer they take with them it’s a portable unit that links through the wireless network. They at the scene can process the entire scene – dust for fingerprints, do the DNA swabs. Now I can’t speak for DNA, how they process that, there’s a whole chain of evidence thing for that but as far as fingerprints go, because they now use digital cameras, film is gone, they can take a photo of the fingerprint there and then with a scale so that we can scale it, they load it onto what we call the Forensic Register, which is the Queensland Police’s own forensic database. And once they’re happy, they can type their notes, then they can hit the send button and in real time it will come straight to our office. A job flashes up on our screen to say, another job’s on the system, we have a work list so as you can appreciate, we don’t have just one scenes of crime officer out there, we’ve got hundreds.
So, our work list will go from anywhere from zero to a thousand to more depending on how busy they are because they’re coming in from all over Queensland. Now we have what we call regional experts that have access to that same thing. We’ve got five to seven regional experts and they’ve got access to the same database. We’ve got one in Townsville, one in Rockhampton, three on the Gold Coast, one at Toowoomba and all of us in the office. So, we all sit there, and we can then go, okay, there’s a job there, we open the job. We can scale up the photos. We look at them and again with modern technology we have another system that all police use which is called QPRIME. It talks to the Forensic Register. So once the crime report that you’ve rung through is generated and you say, well, I saw John Smith walking down the road. I know he breaks into houses; you can nominate him as a suspect. So, our job code will then read job: this address, here is a possible suspect. If John Smith’s fingerprints are on the database, we can immediately go to his prints and go put them through the national database and say, look for this person in particular. It can, if it is his print, it will come back and it’ll say, have a look at whatever finger and we can look at it. Technology is good in the respect that it can shorten the duration, but it still needs a human element because a computer can’t tell the difference between certain features.
With the technology that you’re using, are you able to provide feedback or modify the processes of the technology that you’re using?
Not really, we can put forward suggestions. And then it’ll be assessed, like if we all have the same complaint. Recently, there was a big issue with part of the process, once you’ve made the ident, you put your charts on and then it goes on to another list and the next expert checks it and checks it. If you make a mistake when you put your nomination on – so, for arguments sake, that fingerprint that was left by John Smith was his left thumb and you’re having a bit of a moment, the phone’s rung or something and you type right thumb. Once you used to hit send, it’d go through as a wrong nomination. So, it’d be a right thumb and there was a whole big rigmarole to change it back. You’d have to send a message to the tech people, and they’d have to go in, they’d have to delete. You’d make a log entry saying that they’ve altered it. We complained and said, look, you know, sometimes it just happens, you know, we’re human, we’re fallible. So now they’re giving us an hour window. They set an hour window so, if I send it through and say it was the right thumb instead of a left thumb and the next expert looks and thinks, that’s not a right thumb, that’s a left thumb, they can then tell me, and I’ve got the opportunity within that hour window to go back in and correct my mistake if it’s identified. So, I can make a note entry saying nomination in error or finger nomination error it was the right thumb not the left thumb.
What would you say has been the effect of technology on jobs in the QPS or in your area and have jobs disappeared, jobs changed?
Jobs haven’t disappeared. There is a job that has developed but again, it’s still fingerprint work but the biggest one would probably be down-skilling. Some of the guys that learnt on the old Henry system and looked through magnifying glasses spent years and years and years looking at it, when called on to look through those magnifying glasses, have a higher skill than those of us that never got trained on that. So instead of using magnifying glasses, we use a computer screen. We can make it as big or as small, as we like. Whereas they had a little, I think it was 15-powered magnification that they used to spend hunched over a desk day in day out with pointers.
So, technology you feel has de-skilled some jobs?
I say de-skilled but it’s probably not the right term. It has changed the skill set. Whereas they used to do it so manually, now I can do what they used to take weeks to do, I can do it in a day, 20 minutes. And also, the fact that it is all computer based, I can do it a lot faster. I can maybe change contrast and things on the computer that they could never do with film. I can reverse the image and have a negative image which will bring up detail that sometimes you can’t see because the computer works on contrast. So, there are certain skills that have developed differently. And some skills that have probably faded. So, I would say looking at a computer screen, I may be faster than some of the experts that learnt on the old way, but they can still do Henry far faster than I can do it. I can navigate around the forensic database far better than some of the older experts and QPRIME, particularly the main database that they’ve never been required to use until now.
IMPACT OF COVID:
I’d like to move on now to the impact of COVID. So of course, due to social distancing, we saw a lot of workers suddenly working remotely from home and using online meeting platforms like Zoom. I’d like to see how your work was affected during COVID. Can you tell me what was your work like before COVID, what was your typical day?
It’s the nature of the job that there’s no such thing as a typical day, but the majority of our time was spent in the office doing comparisons, working LiveScan and/or working in the labs, or going out to jobs. But the majority of the time was spent in comparison doing comparison work or computer work, often LiveScan. Which again is another technical platform which, when the person’s arrested, they can take an electronic set of prints and it comes through to our office in real time. We can run those prints through the national database in real time and ring them up and say, ‘no don’t let them go, there’s more’. So, they were sort of the typical days, that the LiveScan had to be manned all the time because it required somebody to be there to process what was coming in in real time to get back to the watch houses, and the arresting officers.
So, during COVID that was one post that always needed manning and it wasn’t open (to remote work) because of the costs involved. It’s linked on its own internal cabled network, and it costs millions of dollars just to move the cable.
What was the effect of COVID on your working life?
We had a unique situation in where, as we lost 25% of our workforce to manning borders, quarantine hotels. We also started the work from home. Now to try and to make this understandable, we work with three databases. We have the Forensic Register, we have QPRIME, we have the national database, and we have LiveScan. LiveScan is attached to the national database, so I count that as one. Anyone working from home could access the QPS system. So, they could get onto the QPS databases like LiveScan and the Forensic Register. If they’ve had the passwords and the right computers and everything. National database, they couldn’t access because the terminal licences, they couldn’t access from home. You can only access from a designated terminal and that’s got to do with licencing and the cabling. So, there are only a certain number of what we call a NAFIS terminal – National Automated Fingerprint Identification System terminal. They can’t be remotely accessed from home. Only the forensic register and the QPRIME. Now, losing 25% of our staff to hotel duty, quarantine, stopping people entering Queensland, dropped us down straight away. That each section had to provide so many people to go on deployment. Then we had the administration officers who were also involved in that group, but a lot of them decided to work from home, which meant they remotely accessed the computer terminal.
So, did they have the choice to work from here?
Yes, then gradually they offered sworn officers the opportunity to work from home. With the restrictions of you can only get into QPRIME, your email and the Forensic Register which meant that those that went to the office had to man the NAFIS terminals.
So, you still had a choice of working from home, even though there was parts of your job that couldn’t be done at home?
Yes, but there were provisos. Because the fingerprint bureau’s a NATA accredited lab, your computer had to comply with certain criteria. It had to have a certain amount of memory, it had to have a certain resolution, there were a set number of criteria that one, your computer had to have. Two, because it was NATA, your workspace couldn’t just be your kitchen table or a wooden chair. It had to comply with occupational workplace health and safety requirements. So, you had to have a proper desk, you had to have proper lighting. And at one point they were talking about going out and inspecting everyone’s home workstation, because you were working under NATA conditions, that had to comply with NATA. Me, I had the opportunity to work from home, but my computer didn’t match those criteria. And the QPS, I felt, if they wanted me to work from home, should supply my computer and I wasn’t going to spend money to do their job.
So, you continued working in the main office. Were there any changes in the way your work was supervised during COVID?
There were because some of the supervisors did work from home. So, they couldn’t actually directly supervise. Look supervision, whilst we are supervised, we pretty much, even in the office, work autonomously. You’re responsible for your work. And the supervisors are there to occasionally provide guidance or to allocate resources if there’s a job and to do the final checks.
So, this is both before and during COVID? No real changes?
No, no real changes.
So, how did all of this affect your normal role?
It had some significant effects in the fact that the people working from home didn’t do the lab work, they didn’t man LiveScan, they didn’t do the NAFIS searching but they would do the checks or what we call suspect checks where a suspect’s nominated and they just pull up the prints. But they also relied on the people in the office, if that set of prints hadn’t been scanned onto the system, they required us to go out, pull the hard copy or the paper copy, scan it and put it on the system for them.
Did that decrease or increase your workload?
It increased the workload. There were less people in the office to do that sort of thing. There are less people in the office to be deployed out to go to the morgue, to go to murder scenes. So that the pool of resources, had shrunk, one by the people being in the hotels and borders, one by working from home so you had maybe 15% that were carrying the main primary workload of the lab work, LiveScan and doing the auxiliary duties like going to the morgue, going out to crime scenes.
How important was digital online technology in allowing you to continue your work. During this time, was your use of the tools increased, reduced or about the same?
About the same, although they expected an increase because we had to pick up the shortfall for the searching on the national database. Those of us in the office had to pick up that shortfall.
Did you make use of any different technologies to communicate with your colleagues that were working from home?
No, pretty much just phone, email and they did use Skype, but they’ve always used Skype. That’s how they can when there’s office meetings. The regional guys don’t have to come into Brisbane. They just get on Skype.
Would you say changes in technology have made your work harder or easier, and in what way?
I don’t know whether it’s made it harder or easier.
So, this is specifically in COVID were you able to provide feedback or modify processes on technology you were using during COVID?
Pretty much the same processes that had always been there. You just raised an issue. They’d assess it and decide whether or not it needed addressing or not, or if it was even possible to be done.
Did your employer assist with any special training during this time?
Just the normal training that QPS provides.
You’ve already mentioned that you were expected to provide your own hardware if you worked from home. Were there any additional hardware requirements that your employer assisted you with during this time?
No.
Do you have anything else to add?
I was going to say that COVID also had a profound effect in the fact that we had to pick up the workload from Northern Territory. In the fact that much like Queensland, there was a mandate by the Police Commissioner that they all get vaccinated, and they lost a great deal of their staff, who were a smaller bureau because they didn’t get vaccinated, so they were all stood down, which meant there was only one person left in the office, which meant they weren’t processing it and then they’ve approached Queensland and they pay for us to do their work, but it’s all done by overtime.
FUTURE QUESTION:
Do you think should a similar event to COVID occur in the future, do you think this might happen again? If jobs might disappear or alter?
Having gone through G20, Commonwealth Games and now COVID, QPS will still put a drain on manpower, you get called to go and do jobs that aren’t necessarily what you expect. So, Commonwealth Games we will get called away to do security work. With the Olympics coming, again they’re going to be calling on staff away in 2032 so they will always supply staff and we will, I guess always adjust to match.
Just a final question based on your experience. How do you think technology will affect your job in future?
Technology is always changing. We’ve got a system called Lights Out Latents where the computer actually makes nominations and then you check it. And our current boss is big in favour of this. We question it because at the end of the day, it’s still a machine. It’s still going to need a human element with a fingerprint. Until you get a fool-proof machine. Like we’ve seen this thing make mistakes. And by that, I mean a computer is only as good as its program. The best example I can give for that is, most people know what the Southern Cross looks like. It’s on our flag. It’s a set of five stars but there is also a false cross. Now when the computer picks out all its random points, it might come up with something that’s much like that. So, the way I describe it is, if you know where to look for the Southern Cross and you know that, yes, you go to look for the cross and you look for the coal-sack and then you look for the two pointers and then, you know, you’ve got the right Southern Cross. If you find the full southern cross with the false cross in the sky, it doesn’t have that coal sack. It doesn’t have the two pointers, but it does have those features. Now, a computer will give you, here’s the false cross, but you need somebody to interpret that information and go, ‘oh no that’s the false cross. Not the true Southern Cross’. So, an astronomer would walk up and go ‘no you’re looking at a false cross, look over there’. Now while Lights Out Latents can do that it has its limitations. It can only nominate what it can nominate, and it doesn’t always get a hundred percent right. So, whilst they’re pushing for it, and they really, really encourage it we keep arguing no, not to progress too fast because who wants to be arrested, when they have done nothing? Just because computer said, no, that’s your fingerprint and then you look at it later and it’s not so sometimes, they push technology too fast.
Technology is always changing like 20 years ago, what we do is in its infancy. In the 90s, even when I went through the police academy, computers were only just entering the fingerprint bureau. Now, the computer goes down and every one’s swearing and carrying on because ‘I can’t do anything!’. So, in 20 years, I’ve seen the change. Now even with DNA, which is not my field, but I recently, when I was in Taiwan, saw the rapid DNA unit. Currently it can take anywhere from 6 to 12 months to get a DNA result from the lab. This machine can do it in 90 minutes. They’ve had incredible success in the US, Italy and in Asia with this thing. So, if they can make a machine that can do a DNA profile in 90 minutes. Who knows what’s going to come next and even then, they’re finding new ways to use that machine, things that they never even thought of. So, the law enforcement officers go ‘let’s just try it’ and hey presto it worked. So, technology’s ever changing. Who knows in five years maybe you might be at the scene doing the comparison on your phone, who knows? – END
Glossary of Terms
Polilight – is a portable, high-intensity, filtered light source used by forensic scientists and others to detect fingerprints, bodily fluids and other evidence from crime scenes and other places.
NATA – The National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia is the recognised national accreditation authority for analytical laboratories and testing service providers in Australia
LiveScan is a 100% paperless and inkless fingerprint identification solution, which allows operators to capture accurate, digital fingerprints and palm-prints and send images electronically in a matter of minutes.
NAFIS – The National Automated Fingerprint Identification System is an Australian fingerprint and palm print database and matching system[1] to assist law enforcement agencies across Australia and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to establish the identity of persons and to help solve crimes[2] and for other purposes. NAFIS was established in 1986, and an upgraded system commenced operations in April 2001 and provides technological improvements in fingerprint matching.
Forensic Register – The register, which is also used by other policing agencies across Australia, was developed by QPS in 2003 to give officers the ability to record DNA analysis and images in a single register.
It integrates with the force’s core operational database QPRIME and is also used by Queensland Health’s forensic and scientific service to manage the state’s forensic needs. Other policing agencies can search the system using the national investigation DNA database and the national automated fingerprint identification system (NAFIS).