By Adam Coleman

New South Wales police will benefit from today’s introduction of a new national information-sharing platform that enables police and law enforcement agencies to exchange and access detailed profiles of persons of interest across all jurisdictions.

Developed by Crimtrac, the National Police Reference System (NPRS) is a comprehensive gamut of police information available to officers on the beat.

It includes warnings, orders, offence histories and records of people who are wanted, unidentified, missing, escapees or on child protection registers.

Administered by CrimTrac, the NPRS was nominated for the APICTA 2008 award in e-government.

Under the previous system, offenders fleeing a crime committed in another state could evade arrest as police could only check offences committed in NSW.

The new system will be rolled out nationally to 50,000 police by March 2009, allowing users to access 9.7 million police records and some two million photographs.