The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) yesterday released the new Police National Database (PND), which provide forces with details of up to 15 million criminals, suspects and victims of crime.

Implemented by IT services firm Logica under a £75 million contract, PND will allow police forces across Britain to share locally held intelligence and information on crime. Earlier, police forces were not able to access information held on other force’s local systems.

Jennie Cronin, director of NPIA programme, said that PND didn’t contain any new information criminals, suspects and victims of crime, but it brought together already known information in the most secure police system ever.

Speaking on the topic, Cronin said, “One-hundred-and-fifty police systems all recorded information in completely different ways and were not connectable to each other. As the complexity became clear, the new plan was put in place.”

PND includes access controls to ensure that authorized users can only search information they need for their particular roles, along with auditing systems to deter misuse.

The new database has been developed in response to the recommendation of Lord Bichard’s inquiry into the failings of police intelligence which had led to the Soham murders arounf 10 years back.