When crime and terrorism occur they rarely respect jurisdictional boundaries. To combat these criminals, law enforcement  organizations have to be prepared to share information from the bottom-up and top-down. The rise of fusion centers and information sharing initiatives across the nation have paved the way over the years to bridge intelligence gaps and put the right information in the right hands, at their point of need.

At the same time, there are still many challenges to face before information sharing becomes de riguer across local, state, national and international boundaries. To better understand and communicate these issues, i2 hosted an information sharing panel at its Americas User Conference earlier this month.

Panelists included Kathleen O’Toole, the Chief Inspector of the Garda Síochána Inspectorate in Ireland, who was previously the Boston, Mass., Police Commissioner. During her time in Boston, she was critical to the founding of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), one of the nation’s first fusion centers. Deputy Chief Troy Smith of the Grand Junction Police Department in Colorado also offered up his expertise gleaned from his department’s organization  in getting Colorado to be one of the states that has successfully established information sharing state-wide. Tim Riley, a current i2 SVP and former CIO for the Los Angeles Police Department, played a large role in establishing information sharing agreements between the LAPD, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and Orange County.  Chriss Knisley, the i2 Assistant Vice President for the COPLINK product line was also in attendance to discuss the technological standpoint of information sharing. i2’s Director of Corporate Communications Mitch Derman moderated the session.

While discussing the solutions to the major pain points in information sharing, the panellists touched on one basic requirement at all levels: the critical need for collaboration. Whether it be between operations and analysts or the federal government and local police departments, it is imperative that the primary goal must be to create a safe environment for citizens and law enforcement officers alike. Deputy Chief Smith and Riley agreed that the inroads that have already been taken toward information sharing are light years ahead of where things used to be earlier in their careers.  However until collaboration and a willingness to share becomes the norm, there are still challenges to tackle.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of collaboration is the need to build relationships.  Chief Inspector O’Toole heartily stressed the importance of uniting operational sworn police officers with the more traditional back-office analysts. Regardless of the environment in which they interact, it is important to train analysts and sworn officers to work together, ask the right questions, and understand the value of using analysis in investigations. She believes that the best way to solve this problem is to bring the two sides together. O’Toole expressed that,  “At the end of the day, it’s all about relationships and co-locating people to the greatest extent possible in some of these centers to work on different operations together… the more time analysts spend with operations people the stronger the relationship and the more valuable the relationship becomes. The BRIC was my pet project, and I spent a lot of time there, and walking through it, one wouldn’t know who was sworn and who wasn’t sworn because analysts were valued as much as the sworn personnel.”

Deputy Chief Smith also emphasized the importance of communication, particularly within and across communities and organizations, to combat the stigma against sharing private information. The recent tragic shootings in Arizona provided a prime example of small pieces of information located in disparate sources that prevented the experts  from being able to access all the puzzle pieces to see the broader picture.  Deputy Chief Smith recognized this as an ongoing issue and organized a forum in Grand Junction, Colo., with public and private organizations to discuss how they could combat such a complicated scenario.  By instigating a collaboration of various members of the community, it not only brought awareness to both law enforcement officials but others such as schools and health center officials who are normally unable or unwilling to share information. Already Grand Junction has seen  noticeable results from their forum. Deputy Chief Smith remarked that “we’ve had some people at a mental health hospital notice certain behaviors, and they were capable of sharing that information in a way that didn’t violate their agreements. Previously they may not have known to call or that we would have been interested in that information.”

Fear of widespread access to private information is one of the largest inhibitors against the adoption of information sharing. Fortunately, through the creation of extensive audit trails and security protocols, Riley and Knisley believe this can be overcome. Records exist for every attempted access to private information to know who is accessing it and what exactly they are looking at. Knisley added that, “In regards to the effective use of information, people are going to think a little bit more about accessing information system that they know is logged. People are not going to log in and search for someone they might get in trouble for later if they know their name is attached to it.”

Your insights are welcome on this important topic.