HUDSON — The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office has become one of the first sheriff’s offices in the nation to use new biometric technology to track and mitigate COVID-19 and other communicable diseases and distribution of medications in the Columbia County Jail.

According to the sheriff’s office, the new technology was made possible with grant funding from the New York State Sheriff’s Association obtained through the New York State Department of Public Health.

The systems, Med-Verify Plus and Med Verify, were installed at no cost to Columbia County taxpayers.“The Med-Verify system uses iris biometric technology to allow medical personnel at the sheriff’s office to positively identify individuals in their custody prior to issuing medications or providing medical care,” according to the sheriff’s office.

In addition to ensuring that the right inmate gets the right treatment, Med-Verify Plus provides real-time reporting to medical staff to track incidents of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases to help keep inmates and staff safe.

Med-Verify works as an add-on module to the Inmate Recognition Identification System, which was also obtained by the sheriff’s office, as part of the grant. The Inmate Recognition Identification System, or IRIS, was developed in collaboration with the nation’s sheriffs to positively identify inmates using IRIS, the most anatomically unique and visible biometric technology available.

“The IRIS system operates on the nation’s only secure, encrypted, real-time national criminal justice sharing network based on the iris biometric technology. IRIS enables law enforcement agency staff to positively identify criminals in seconds,” according to the sheriff’s office.

“Through the Med Verify software, the Inmate Recognition Identification System will advance the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office’s capabilities to positively identify a previous offender in seconds using this technology.

”Columbia County Sheriff Donald Krapf said IRIS will revolutionize county law enforcement.“I am honored and pleased to join my fellow New York sheriffs, and sheriffs across the nation, in implementing these proven and remarkable technologies,” Krapf said in a written statement.

“Historically, law enforcement has not been the most communicative field. The IRIS system allows us to share data with the 57 sheriff’s offices across the state. Because, as we know, the criminal element doesn’t stay in one place. It travels around.”

Krapf spoke about the advantages of the IRIS system from a law enforcement point of view.“Everything we learned was that fingerprints were very exact and extremely identifiable,” Krapf said.

“The IRIS system blows that away. There is no comparison between IRIS and fingerprint identification. There’s no other person that walks the face of the earth that has the same exact I.R.I.S. The ability to capture and authenticate information and the speed of it is just so impressive. It’s a matter of seconds, and then you have the results back, and the accuracy is undeniable.”

”Krapf says the continuous use of new technology is vital because it will help law enforcement determine what’s working and what isn’t.“We need to have this to find out what we’re doing wrong and find out what we’re doing right, and we can share the information with our community,” Krapf said.