THE ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING CENTER OF THE INFORMATION DIVISION MAKES USE OF TWO THIRD-GENERATION ON-LINE COMPUTERS, EACH WITH A CENTRAL MEMORY CAPACITY OF 1,000K BYTES, ON THE OS/VS3 OPERATIVE SYSTEM. THE TWO CENTRAL UNITS ARE LINKED TO MAGNETIC DISKS WITH A COMPLEX MEMORY CAPACITY OF 9 THOUSAND MILLION, 600 THOUSAND BYTES. APPROXIMATELY 400 TERMINALS IN ALL ITALIAN POLICE OFFICES ARE CONNECTED TO THE MAIN CENTER; VIDEO TERMINALS WILL SOON BE INSTALLED IN THE MORE IMPORTANT PROVINCIAL POLICE HEADQUARTERS. THE CENTER HAS AT ITS DISPOSAL NEARLY 2,000 PROGRAMS OF VARYING COMPLEXITY, AND EXPERIMENTS ARE BEING CONDUCTED WITH OTHER TYPES OF SOFTWARE DESIGNED TO MORE EFFECTIVELY MANAGE REMOTE INFORMATION PROCESSING; CREATE, RUN, AND CONSULT DATA BANKS; AND MAKE USE OF AUTOMATIC DOCUMENTATION. THE CENTER'S MOST IMPORTANT FUNCTION IS THAT OF THE NETWORK OF TERMINALS IN POLICE HEADQUARTERS AND PUBLIC SECURITY OFFICES: THE TERMINALS ARE USED BOTH TO SEARCH THE CENTER COMPUTERS FOR DATA RELEVANT TO POLICE OPERATIONS AND TO CONSTANTLY UPDATE THE DATA BANK WITH NEW INFORMATION. THE 400 TERMINALS HAVE ACCESS IN REAL TIME TO THE FOLLOWING FILES: (1) VEHICLES STOLEN, USED IN A CRIME, OR SOUGHT BY THE POLICE; (2) PERSONS DESIGNATED AS INJURIOUS OR DANGEROUS TO PUBLIC SECURITY BY ITALIAN POLICE OFFICIALS OR THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL POLICE ORGANIZATION; (3) FIREARMS SOLD IN ITALY TO ITALIAN CITIZENS OR TO FOREIGNERS AND STOLEN OR LOST WEAPONS; (4) SERIAL NUMBERS OF ITALIAN OR FOREIGN BANKNOTES INVOLVED IN SERIOUS CRIMES; (5) DRIVER'S LICENSES REVOKED BY THE AUTHORITIES; AND (6) LOST OR STOLEN IDENTITY PAPERS. MORE COMPLEX FILES, BEGUN IN 1965 AND CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED BY THE POLICE, CONTAIN INFORMATION ON SPECIFIC CRIMES, MODUS OPERANDI, VICTIMS OR OBJECTS OF CRIMES, TIME AND PLACE, PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF OFFENDERS, AND CRIMINAL CAREERS. THE CENTER IS ALSO USED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE AND RECORDKEEPING PURPOSES RELATING TO POLICE SALARIES, WAREHOUSES AND SUPPLIES, VEHICLES, AND EQUIPMENT. --IN ITALIAN. (DAS)