21 Sep 16
9:15 AM
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10:15 AM
Introduction:
The First Responder/Public Safety session highlights biographic and biometric services used by members of law enforcement to make and confirm identifications. The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) contains biographic information that criminal justice professionals use to apprehend fugitives, locate missing persons, recover stolen property, and identify terrorists. On a daily basis, the biographic information within NCIC assists law enforcement officers in performing their official duties more safely and provides them with the information necessary to aid in protecting the general public. First responders may also identify subjects with biometric information using the Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC). This service allows officers on the street to use a mobile identification (ID) device to perform a "lights-out" rapid search of a limited repository of national fingerprint records. In addition, face recognition technology now enables law enforcement to compare photos against mug shots to generate investigative leads.
These technologies protect our law enforcement officers and thus the public at large. The session will reveal the current capabilities of each service as well as future goals. Session attendees will be petitioned for general input as well as ideas regarding the future parameters of each service.
NCIC and RISC are used by the national law enforcement community and are maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division. Decisions regarding these capabilities are made via collaboration with the CJIS Advisory Policy Board (APB) under a shared management concept. Therefore, local, state, tribal, and federal users provide guidance and direction regarding the criminal justice information systems and initiatives that are administered by the CJIS Division. The APB reviews and discusses general operational and technical policy proposals related to these systems and makes recommendations to the FBI Director.
NCIC:
NCIC is a database of criminal justice information entered by local, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies across the country. It is organized into 21 files, consisting of 14 person and seven property files. The 14 person files contain biographic and related criminal justice information, organized as follows:
• Foreign Fugitive
• Gang
• Identity Theft
• Immigration Violator
• Known or Suspected Terrorist
• Missing Person
• National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) Denied Transaction
• Protection Order
• Protective Interest
• Supervised Release
• Unidentified Person
• Violent Person, and
• Wanted Person
• National Sex Offender Registry.
The seven property files are organized as follows:
• Article
• Vehicle
• Boat
• Gun
• License Plate
• Securities
• Vehicle/Boat Parts.
Law enforcement agencies query NCIC through their state CJIS System Agency and receive sub-second response times millions of times a day. NCIC averages more than 13 million transactions a day, with an average response times of less than 0.016 seconds.
Since its inception, NCIC has operated under a shared management concept between the FBI and federal, state, local, and tribal criminal justice users. There are two facets to the shared management concept-policy and functional. The policy facet provides a means for user input on NCIC policy through the CJIS APB. The FBI provides a host computer and telecommunication lines to a single point of contact in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and Canada, as well as to federal criminal justice agencies. Those jurisdictions, in turn, operate their own computer systems, providing access to nearly all local criminal justice agencies and authorized non-criminal justice agencies nationwide. The entry, modification, and removal of records are the responsibility of the agency that entered them. The FBI's CJIS Division serves as the custodian of NCIC records.
RISC:
In 2011, the FBI launched RISC, which enables law enforcement agencies across the country to use mobile ID devices to search fingerprints against a limited national database. The RISC data set contains fingerprint records of persons of heightened interest. Prior to the implementation of RISC, local law enforcement agencies with mobile ID devices could only search a subject's fingerprints against their own local and/or state records.
Agencies are responsible for procuring the mobile ID devices and connecting to the FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) biometric system. RISC supports rapid mobile identification searches using a minimum of two to a maximum of ten fingerprint images (flat or rolled) against a population that currently includes:
• Wanted Persons (including the Immigration Violator File)
• National Sexual Offender Registry Subjects
• Known or Suspected Terrorists
• Other Persons of Special Interest.
Current RISC responses include the Red/Yellow/ Green flag, which define the category of hit, the Master Name, the FBI Number, and limited NCIC information with the ability to request rap sheets. A red flag indicates a highly probable candidate was identified in RISC, a yellow flag indicates a possible candidate, while a green flag shows no candidate was found.
Each day, law enforcement agencies submit biometric and biographic information to the NGI. With the deployment of RISC, these agencies can now search this national database with a biometric (fingerprints), while searching their own local and/or state records. Within seconds, responses are sent to the mobile device advising whether the subject is a possible Wanted Person (including the Immigration Violator File), a National Sex Offender Registry Subject, a Known or Suspected Terrorist, or Other Person of Special Interest. If a mugshot is on file, it can be returned to the device also. The average internal response time for a RISC query is 4.33 seconds.
In the past, law enforcement officers have relied on name-based searches of the Interstate Identification Index. RISC makes possible biometric-based searches of a national database in time-sensitive situations where previously only name-based searches were available.
RISC searches submitted from a mobile device are not designed or expected to take the place of customary booking procedures that use tenprint submissions. RISC users are advised that they are prohibited from relying on RISC search responses as the sole impetus for any law enforcement action. Moreover, RISC responses are not to be considered "positive" identifications and must be used only as investigative aids, together with other investigative processes and information.
Every RISC query is also searched against the Unsolved Latent File (ULF). Latent fingerprints are collected for criminal justice and/or national security purposes. NGI maintains more than 650,000 latent fingerprints in the ULF, which are submitted by the FBI Laboratory Division and federal and state partners. States must establish the infrastructure to support the exchange of mobile fingerprint transmissions and forward those transmissions to the FBI. The infrastructure may include servers, software, or additions/modifications to the current Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) or the hardware that will process and pass the transaction to another agency AFIS.
Face Recognition:
Florida uses face recognition as a law enforcement tool to assist in producing investigative leads. Florida's face recognition can search images from local and national databases that populate its system. An unknown image is analyzed and an algorithm is used to search for a possible likeness in the database. Currently, a lineup of images is produced and provided using the system to conduct a side-by-side comparison, and based on the response(s), to determine whether or not the information will be useful in the investigation. This is a subjective process and involves a great deal of trial and error when attempting to identify unknown subjects.
Due to the subjectivity and a number of other factors, there are limitations to the face recognition process. One significant hurdle is the way images are captured. Image quality, how much of the face is showing, angle of the face, etc., all affect face recognition search results.
Summary:
The first responder community can benefit greatly from biographic and biometric tools in responding to crimes or in support of investigations. An officer will approach a vehicle pulled over for speeding with increased caution if an NCIC license plate query reveals that the vehicle was stolen. Creating an investigative lead from a bank robbery video via facial recognition, or identifying a fugitive within a matter of seconds via a fingerprint query, assists law enforcement with daily functions. All three tools protect the lives of officers and benefit the public at large.