Mobile fingerprint scanners like the one pictured here are helping police quickly identify people and make sure they are who they say they are.

Two police departments in the county have the latest technology to identify people and make sure people are who they say they are.

The Evans City Seven Fields Regional Police and the Butler Police departments have received mobile digital fingerprint identification devices from the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, which provided the devices through a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency's Local Technology Workgroup in cooperation with state police.

Butler police Friday posted an announcement about receiving one of the devices on their Facebook page, but Evans City Seven Fields Regional police received their unit in January.

Officers use the device to identify someone if they suspect the person has provided false identification, he or she doesn't have identification or is not able to communicate, Longdon said.

The chiefs association and the Pennsylvania Justice Network established a secure server and network to receive transmission from the devices and send them to the Pennsylvania State Police Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

The only costs associated with the existing unit is the mobile phone service.

Read more about the scanner in the Butler Eagle.