FBI considers how to expand national database

The FBI wants ideas on how to broaden the sources for its National Data Exchange or N-DEx, program.

The agency wants to collect data from jails and corrections, probation and parole offices, and courts and then integrating the information into to N-DEx.

N-DEx is the only national investigative information-sharing system that provides local, state, tribal and federal criminal justice agencies with a mechanism for searching, linking, analyzing, sharing, and collaborating on criminal justice information.

In the new request for information, the FBI wants to learn about approaches to:

• Collecting data from more than 1,000 criminal justice agencies and storing the data in a centralized location.
• Capturing multiple data elements, such as descriptive information, photographs, incarceration data, court records, and supervision status.
• Submitting the data from numerous data sources in a format that matches the Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) requirements.
• Configuring information to meet appropriate data files elements, such XML and Secure File Transfer Protocol.

To start, the project includes first mapping an agency’s data elements to the IEPD format and developing extraction application software. Once these integration efforts are in place, agencies then can begin contributing data to the N-DEx.

The FBI released the RFI Nov. 6. Responses are due by Nov. 20.