City police speeding up criminal background checks

During the recent North Bay Police Service board meeting members agreed to give officers and the community the gift of new technology in order to help speed up the criminal reference background check process.

The board has agreed to invest $137,000 for live scan technology which will see fingerprint submissions to the RCMP sent digitally.

Both Police Chief Paul Cook and Deputy Police Chief Al Williams say the investment will help eliminate delays for organizations and employers who require a background screening for volunteers and employees.

"This has been causing some hardship for community groups that are looking to maintain and recruit volunteers," explains Cook.

"As well as for people out there in the community that are looking for employment but require a volatile sector check in order to have that as a requirement of their employment."

"The new system will be working the same as what we have in "place where people will come in make the application we would have their fingerprints sent,” Cook states."

"It's real time identification so the RCMP would be able to verify the fingerprints and get that back to us within a number of hours as opposed to the months that it is taking right now, so it's an electronic submission basically."