About ACO Electronics

History

Established in London in 1987 in the premises of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, ACO Electronics was able to utilise the expertise of a group of scientists and optical experts at the Royal Institution to develop an initial product range for use by the UK Immigration Service. Since then we have firmly established ourselves as a global supplier of products to counter the growing problem of illegal immigration through the presentation of fraudulent documentation.

Further research and development produced an increased range of products which led to company expansion, and in 1990 having outgrown the offices in London, we relocated to our present rural location on the borders of Hertfordshire, close to the university city of Cambridge.

What we do

One of our areas of expertise is in the supply of equipment for the detection of counterfeit travel documents in front line areas such as border control and at airport departure gates, where because of the high throughput of passengers speedy document verification is vital.

We have also developed instrumentation for the back office or second line where a more in depth examination of suspect documents can be made. With this more sophisticated equipment changes to documents that are not visible to the naked eye may be detected, and with our innovative software images of suspect documents may be investigated in even greater detail.

With the cooperation of the Metropolitan Police in London we developed an instrument for the side by side comparison of fingerprints, and subsequently we have supplied this product to most police fingerprint bureaux in the UK and to many fingerprint departments overseas.

Over many years we have developed a close relationship with the world leader in hand held contraband detection and search technology, and can offer these products to the UK and overseas markets. To enhance the service we offer our customers who embrace this technology, we can now manufacture some of these products under licence in the U.K.

To further improve our offering to our customers we have formed alliances with companies that provide training in document examination and related areas of expertise. These companies have many years of experience in their fields and will provide on or off site training in the use of our products, detailed training on the latest security features and training on how to detect fraudulent documents.

The Future

We are continually improving our existing product range so that we can offer our customers the latest technology and the best value for money in the equipment needed to combat fraud and illegal immigration. We are also continually developing other new products to assist all types of law enforcement agencies to detect and prevent criminal activity.

Our objectives are:

• To be a market leader in our core business in the supply of equipment for the detection of fraudulent documents of all types.
• To establish a strong position in the market for our other law enforcement products.
• To maintain our worldwide reputation for the delivery of products to our customers at the highest quality level.
• To push technological enhancement in the development and improvement of our range of products.
• To establish and maintain close relationships with the leading suppliers of law enforcement technologies, so that we can offer the very best products and service to our customers.