Mobile fingerprint scanners are helping police quickly identify people.

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 and like it so much they will buy one next year.

“We got it soon after the first of the year,” said Cpl. Scott Longdon of the regional police department.

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.

“If their prints are on file for whatever reason, we will check it against the database,” he 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.

“It's really pretty simple. We place the person's thumb on the reader and it does the work for you. All of our officers are trained to use it,” Longdon said.

The unit is kept in the department's Evans City station, but it can be used in the field, he said.

Before the department had the device, officers had to take people to the state police barracks to have their fingerprints scanned.

“It's a timesaver for us and the individual in those cases,” Longdon said.

Department administrator Tom Smith said officers have used the device in the field, and money to buy a unit is being included in next year's budget.

“We've utilized it on several occasions out in the field when individuals don't have IDs on them,” Smith said. “This has been a very handy tool.”

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

“The cost is very minimal to the department. It's a cell phone line. That's it,” Smith said. “We're in the process of preparing the 2019 budget. It includes a request for another one because it is a useful piece of technology.”