Ammunition for gun control
29 May 2003
The UK Government is aiming to create a national firearms database by August 2004, in a bid to control the illegal use of guns across the country
UK police forces will be tightening their grip on gun control following a green light from the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) for a long awaited national firearms database. The project is now expected to be operational by 31 August 2003, Lord Falconer, the Home Office minister, told Parliament on 20 May 2003.
The project, known as the firearms licensing management system, will provide a central database on every person in the UK who has applied for, or been granted, a firearms or shotgun certificate. It was on PITO's agenda as early as 1999, but suffered a series of setbacks.
A Home Office spokesperson told Government Computing News that the Government had been forced to abort several attempts at setting up the system. “A tender was already in place to create the interface, but it didn’t provide a solution that was satisfactory to police forces,†said the spokesperson.
Lord Falconer told the House of Lords that the central database will assist local systems in enforcing gun licence law by enabling easy assess to information on who has a licence and who has been refused one, “But it does not obviate the need for a local means of enforcing the licensing system,†he said.
PITO is currently evaluating the responses to its invitation to tender for the project, published in October 2002. The tender specified that the new system must interface with the Police National Computer and local force systems.
Details of the tendering process are being kept under wraps. Lord Falconer said that six suppliers had responded to the invitation to tender, but that the names of potential suppliers “were currently being treated as commercial in confidenceâ€.
Source: Kable's Government Computing
Publication date: 29/05/2003 12:26:55 PM
29 May 2003
The UK Government is aiming to create a national firearms database by August 2004, in a bid to control the illegal use of guns across the country
UK police forces will be tightening their grip on gun control following a green light from the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) for a long awaited national firearms database. The project is now expected to be operational by 31 August 2003, Lord Falconer, the Home Office minister, told Parliament on 20 May 2003.
The project, known as the firearms licensing management system, will provide a central database on every person in the UK who has applied for, or been granted, a firearms or shotgun certificate. It was on PITO's agenda as early as 1999, but suffered a series of setbacks.
A Home Office spokesperson told Government Computing News that the Government had been forced to abort several attempts at setting up the system. “A tender was already in place to create the interface, but it didn’t provide a solution that was satisfactory to police forces,†said the spokesperson.
Lord Falconer told the House of Lords that the central database will assist local systems in enforcing gun licence law by enabling easy assess to information on who has a licence and who has been refused one, “But it does not obviate the need for a local means of enforcing the licensing system,†he said.
PITO is currently evaluating the responses to its invitation to tender for the project, published in October 2002. The tender specified that the new system must interface with the Police National Computer and local force systems.
Details of the tendering process are being kept under wraps. Lord Falconer said that six suppliers had responded to the invitation to tender, but that the names of potential suppliers “were currently being treated as commercial in confidenceâ€.
Source: Kable's Government Computing
Publication date: 29/05/2003 12:26:55 PM
