Aside from carrying their usual slew of weapons which includes a baton, pepper spray and a firearm police in The Netherlands are getting a new weapon that's not entirely as dangerous but will certainly go a long way in making their lives easier. Some 10,000 cops of the country's National Police have received the Galaxy S5 which comes with custom software that allows them to tap into the police database to check personal data and also write digital fines. This makes it much easier for them to ascertain whether someone is telling the truth about their identity, they simply need to run a search in the app and find out if the person's ID is genuine or fake.
Edwin Delwel of the National Police says that cops only have to enter a name and a birthdate in the system which then brings up additional information as well as a photograph within seconds thereby saving a lot of time and eliminating the possibility of being hoodwinked. From 2016 police will also be able to record declaration with the smartphone, for example if it's a burglary case the agent only needs to sign the ID card of the declarant, enter information about the incident, take photos and then have the declaration signed digitally which is then immediately sent to the victim via email.
Since the system will automatically pull in information from the database it means that the possibility of errors is reduced particularly when filing fines, officers will be able to hand out fines digitally by simply scanning the person's ID card. The new system is being tested on a relatively small scale for now but by next year it will be expanded to cover some 33,000 police officers.
