ORLANDO, FL, 13-JUN-00 -- Lockheed Martin Information Systems, a unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT), will provide an advanced statewide Automated Fingerprint Identification System to the West Virginia State Police. The West Virginia State Police, through a cooperative agreement with the FBI, will use the same leading technology that powers the FBI's national fingerprint system. Lockheed Martin's Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) is the core element of that system supporting fingerprint identification ranging from crime scene to background checks.

The FBI's AFIS was designed to be scalable, said Lockheed Martin Information Systems President John Hallal. This system can be expanded to handle an increasing national workload, or sized to meet the needs of an individual state, city or region.

The system allows the FBI to match similar fingerprint characteristics associated with the ridge patterns from over 400 million fingerprints. Searches, previously accomplished by examiners' physical comparisons of the entire file, were reduced from months to hours with the implementation of AFIS in July 1999.

AFIS will provide our law enforcement officers with another critical tool to aid in the apprehension and identification of criminals, said West Virginia Governor Cecil H. Underwood. This identification system brings our state into the 21st Century in terms of law enforcement technology. Obtaining this technology greatly benefits our citizens by allowing us to identify criminals who might otherwise go undetected.

AFIS is a leading criminal identification technology, said West Virginia State Police Superintendent Colonel Gary L. Edgell. Prior to AFIS, officers had to have a suspect in order to make a comparison with fingerprints obtained at a crime scene. With AFIS, we can search our database in an attempt to ascertain a print identification very quickly.

We will also have the ability to open cold cases and hopefully clear some old crimes and we will be able to positively identify victims of crimes or develop suspects in a matter of hours.

Work on the $2.9 million contract will take place in Orlando and West Virginia.

Lockheed Martin Information Systems provided integration of the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System and was also the prime contractor to the FBI's AFIS, a system that uses fingerprint technology from Lockheed Martin and from Sagem SA. Lockheed Martin's technology was originally developed for target identification in defense applications.