DOVER-FOXCROFT – The local Police Department is one of 13 law enforcement agencies in the state selected to receive a biometric iris recognition system to help find children and adults who are reported missing.

Under the system, young children and people affected by memory loss can have the iris in their eyes scanned, a quick procedure that does not damage the eye, and have the information placed into a national database free of charge. Because an individual’s eye is unique, should a person become missing and appear elsewhere in the state or country, the photograph will provide police with positive identification. The technology is considered better than fingerprints, which require experts, according to police.

“I hope the parents will take advantage of this new technology,” Dover-Foxcroft Police Chief Dennis Dyer said Tuesday. “This will aid us in finding lost or missing children and adults with special needs.”

The equipment was made available through a grant obtained by Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross. Ross, whose department received a $25,000 grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation in 2006 to purchase a biometric iris identification system, recognized the importance of the unit to police across the state.

“That was a seed,” Ross said Tuesday of the King Foundation grant. He said he received a grant from a Maine foundation that wishes to remain anonymous to help purchase units for other law enforcement. His application for $125,000, enough for 13 units, was awarded.

Maine law enforcement across the state were encouraged to apply for one of the units, Ross said. In addition to Dover-Foxcroft, other police departments receiving the technology are in Lewiston, Scarborough, Kittery, Millinocket, and Old Orchard, as well as the Kennebec, Oxford, Cumberland, Aroostook, Waldo and York county sheriff’s departments. Penobscot County will keep one of the devices as a loaner in addition to the one the department purchased through the King Foundation, Ross said.

Those selected, based on community involvement in safety initiatives and their commitment to work with other agencies, will receive the units and training late next month.

In Dover-Foxcroft’s case, the department will work with Greenville, Milo and Brownville police departments, according to Ross.

To keep the units, each department must scan 125 children or people suffering from Alzheimer’s per year for five years. At the end of the five-year period, the department will own the device.

Ross said the eye photographs will be submitted to a national database sponsored by the Nation’s Missing Children Organization and the Center for Missing Adults. The site is secure and only another picture of the person’s eye can open the record, which contains the child’s or adult’s name and emergency contact information, he said.

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