Police National Computer

The Police National Computer (PNC) is a computer system used extensively by law enforcement organisations across the United Kingdom. It went live in 1974 and now consists of several databases available 24 hours a day, giving access to information of national and local significance.

From October 2009, the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) state that there are over 9.2 million personal records, 52 million driver records, 55 million vehicle records and that 185 million transactions were made in the twelve months previous. Since 1 April 2007, it has been maintained by the NPIA which inherited the activities of the now disbanded Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO). Prior to the establishment of PITO, the PNC was managed directly by the Home Office.

The PNC was started in 1974 with Stolen Vehicles as its initial database. Since then, additional applications have been implemented almost every year. The range of facilities, level of detail and potential value of information stored on the PNC has improved significantly. This has led to the PNC being more of an investigative tool rather than its original purpose of a record keeping one.

The PNC is based on a Fujitsu BS2000/OSD SE700 mainframe with recent PNC applications held on UNIX servers. There are around 26,000 directly connected terminals and 25,000 terminals which are connected via local police force computer systems. The mainframe is connected to the end user by a multitude of ways, for high volume users (i.e. other police forces) via secure IP network, for low volume users a secure dial-up link provided by Cable & Wireless. Another connection method is via an X.25 packet-switched network, this method is being phased out. Databases for vehicles and driver licences are copied from the DVLA databases in the early morning (there is no service loss when an update is in progress). The mainframe server is located at the Hendon Data Centre with back-up servers located around the UK.

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