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Two Identification Bureau (IB) officers of the Hong Kong Police Force have assisted Interpol in establishing the identities of 15 tsunami victims in Phuket, Thailand, by means of fingerprints in a matter of one month.

Of the 15 victims, nine were Hong Kong residents of Canadian, French, German, UK and Chinese nationalities. The other six victims were Canadian, German and Swedish nationals.

At the request of Interpol, IB sent Sergeant Hsia Kai-keung and Woman Sergeant Au Suk-yee to help identify tsunami victims at the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification Information Management Centre (TTVI) in Phuket between February 13 and March 13. During the month, they had handled a total of about 80 files containing over 400 fingerprints and palm prints of persons killed in the tsunami disaster.

WSGT Au and SGT Hsia are proud of what they had achieved at the TTVI Centre. "Between December 31, 2004 when the TTVI Centre was set up and March 13, 2005 when we left Phuket, the Centre had identified 800 plus tsunami victims. Of the victims, 84 were identified by means of fingerprints. We're very pleased that in a matter of one month we have made 15 positive identifications, which represent nearly 18 per cent of the total. We were just one team out of some 13 working at the TTVI Centre, so our results are quite outstanding," she added.

The two officers left for Phuket on February 13 and headed for the TTVI Centre immediately after checking into hotel.

Located inside a tele-communication centre, the TTVI Centre was divided into three sections on DNA, dentistry and fingerprint. After reporting to the Australian manager in charge of the Fingerprint Section, the officers spent the first day learning from an Australian trainer the operations of a computer system for fingerprint identification, known as "Automate Fingerprint Identification System". To their pleasant surprise, they scored their first "hit" by establishing the identity of a Hong Kong resident during that training session, a great and encouraging start indeed.

SGT Hsia and WSGT Au worked in pair at a computer workstation on shifts of either 8 am to 3 pm or 3 pm to 9 pm, alongside fingerprint experts from other countries working at six other workstations, including Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Norway, Portugal, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei.

Their routine work was to input fingerprints into the computer and then proceeded with the tedious job of making comparisons with a long list of "candidates" output from the computer.

SGT Hsia said that he and WSGT Au could only process a few files each day, containing victims' DNA, dental and fingerprint information, and that this was by no means an easy job. He explained: "Our job was not as simple as it might sound. A lot of work had to be done before fingerprints were input into the computer. Very often a file contained more than one fingerprint, and we had handled a file containing more than 30 fingerprints and palm prints. And the 'candidate list' output by the computer was usually rather long; we had come across a list containing over 130 'candidates'."

SGT Hsia pointed out that the poor quality of fingerprints had made their job more difficult. "Fingerprints taken after a long lapse of time or taken from a swollen body are naturally less than satisfactory which brings you extra work and difficulty for comparison," he said.

WSGT Au said that they also had to input and search for palm prints on the computer - a job they have never done in Hong Kong.

Apparently the officers' performance had impressed the Australian manager of the Fingerprint Section. "On our last two days in Phuket, we were asked by the manager to do quality control checking work for fingerprints input by other countries' experts. I think this was a recognition of the overall high standard and quality of our work at the TTVI Centre," WSGT Au noted.

Both officers said they saw their mission in Phuket as "a big challenge and an excellent experience".

"It's a valuable experience for us to have worked side by side with fingerprint experts from other countries and exchanged experiences and ideas with them. I think our job standard is world class, compared with many other countries!" WSGT Au concluded.

Police Report No.10

Issued by PPRB

Ends/Tuesday, April 12, 2005

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