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Creating a Longer Arm of the Law: Sun Microsystems of Canada and BlueBear Network International Partnership a Success- Canadian Pilot Readies Solution for International Police Agencies - Markham, ON - May 10, 2005 - BlueBear Network International, in partnership with Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc., today announced the successful completion of a two-year, Canadian pilot project to provide law enforcement agencies with real-time biometric and text database search capabilities. The participants where able to share electronic mug shot databases, securely over the Internet, facilitating faster identification of suspects. Following the successful conclusion of the pilot, BlueBear will now make the Integrated Digital Law Enforcement (IDLE) system available to law enforcement and justice agencies worldwide. Launched in June 2003, the pilot project sought to link police officers in Chatham-Kent, Windsor, and York Region through a secure, distributed network environment, delivering face-recognition search engine technology, to better track and identify criminal suspects. The system runs BlueBear's distributed, networked search technology, on Sun Fire V20z servers running Solaris and Linux operating systems. Combining Sun servers and Solaris provided a high-performance and secure infrastructure agile enough to scale up and out in response to demand. "Police need better access to information, as well as the ability to share the information and that's exactly what we've accomplished with IDLE," said Andrew Brewin, BlueBear's Chief Executive Officer. "IDLE has clearly demonstrated that secure, fast, easy collaboration and information-sharing enhances police ability to track down criminal suspects. This has been a success for the Canadian law enforcement community and we're pleased to be offering this tool to police services around the world." The project was also made possible through the ongoing support of the Canadian Police Research Centre (CPRC). The CPRC is a partnership of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Research Council of Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "The BlueBear project reinforces our commitment to helping develop products that benefit police," said John Arnold, Chief Scientist, Canadian Police Research Centre. "Increasing access to information is an essential part of policing. In one instance, police in Chatam-Kent successfully searched a database in York Region for a suspect identification in seven seconds. Clearly, this is a worthwhile initiative and we're pleased to have been a part of it." Solaris and Sun Fire servers help police to always get their man Rather than shift data from three law enforcement agencies to a central source, the BlueBear project provided a gateway to access "mug-shots" and text databases quickly and easily. Leveraging the security of the Solaris operating system, BlueBear chose to run the pilot on a Sun Fire V20z for its flexibility and scalability, which allowed the system to evolve as needed throughout the duration of the project, while keeping costs in line. Additionally, the stability of the V20z ensured vitally important uptime for police relying on the BlueBear system, 24-hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. "While extreme performance and reliability are key selling features of Sun servers and important to many of our customers, the real-world relevance really hits home when you see police using it to keep our streets safe," said Norman LeCouvie, Executive Director Global Government Partners and Solutions. "The robustness of the Sun-powered BlueBear systems also lends itself to other areas of the security business, such as customers and border crossings, airports security, and building access control." About BlueBear Network International About Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc. For more information, contact:
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