Wauwatosa- The Wauwatosa Police Department are testing a new camera and surveillance system that lets a shopkeeper check in from anywhere, anytime over the Internet and, more important, gives police an inside view in real time in the event of an emergency. Internet-based cameras are nothing new, however, Wauwatosa police believe they are the first law-enforcement agency in Wisconsin to link them to their dispatch computers, allowing dispatchers and patrol officers to see what's going on inside an address en route to a 911 call.

The video capability is part of a new computer system the Wauwatosa Police Department helped to develop and began testing in its squad cars this year. The Internet-based system, which allows for an level of information sharing unprecedented in the state, has already been picked up in Wisconsin by several Milwaukee County suburbs, from Franklin to Brown Deer; the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department, and the Germantown and Menomonee Falls police departments, though they are all in the early stages of implementing it. Several others are actively considering it, including the Waukesha city and Racine County departments.

The Phoenix software by a New Jersey-based start-up Key Power International represents a significant leap for police agencies, whose officers in the past had to access most information databases individually, often having to stop in to the station to do it.

Now, with just a few clicks on a keyboard - in the station or the squad car - pulls up countless information from different sources. Instead of just a name and address, officers get a physical description, photos - down to a suspect's tattoos and birthmarks - aliases, associates, employment and school histories, and every contact the suspect has had with any other police department on the Phoenix system.

Work in the station has changed as well. A global positioning, or GPS, mapping system lets dispatchers see where squads are and what officers are working on when a call comes in, or zero in on a file photo of a building that can be viewed from all sides.

Because Phoenix is essentially paperless - reports are typed in the squad computers and stored as PDF files; traffic tickets now generate one copy instead of the customary four, and the municipal court judge will view the ticket on his or her computer - record-keeping has changed. Instead of boxes of paper in basement vaults, data are now stored on digital tapes that are stored off-site.