California Data Sharing : What ’ s Next ?
California is trailing behind other states with advancement into a more efficient and cost- effective method of data sharing . It is time to take a step back and regroup with our collective goal to reduce the dependency on private vendors with their associated high costs and annual fees .
The California Statewide Data Sharing Task Force , led by co-chairs Chief John Carli of the Vacaville Police Department and Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson , has formed a subcommittee to create recommendations to assist all California agencies with an effective statewide plan to share our records , incidents , jail and other law enforcement data , with the goal of reducing the high cost of relying solely on the private industry . The Department of Justice ( DOJ ) is participating on the subcommittee and has shared that they maintain 16 disparate databases . In the past five or so years , many regions in California have implemented Coplink as part of the original Cal OES Coplink user license purchase , to assist with extracting and interfacing data to their data sharing solution . At inception and with the help of funding from the State , this solution worked well . However , we now find a number of early adopting agencies dropping off of their regional Coplink systems due to the change or updates to computerized databases , and the associated “ reconnection ” fees that have been quoted by the private vendors .
The Data Sharing Task Force subcommittee believes the most cost effective model to transition toward is for each data sharing region to implement processes and a system that allows participating agencies to become vendor agnostic and own their data . The data warehouse sharing model amongst cities , counties or regions can combine data into one centralized server location and significantly reduce the need for multiple data interfaces into a vendor ’ s solution . As well , the DOJ is reviewing what opportunities they have to combine their 16 databases into a data warehouse solution to share with us .
Upcoming Data Sharing Requirements
In the next three years , California law enforcement agencies will be required to meet new reporting requirements to include the recent Use of Force Reporting ( UR- SUS ), RIPA AB953 , and the move from California Uniform Crime Reporting ( UCR ) to NIBRS ( National Incident- Based Reporting System ) reporting . Manual data entry and tracking , or computer interfaces become cost prohibitive if each of us are required to extract data and submit individually to the Department of Justice ( DOJ ) via separate interfaces . The move to a regional data warehouse solution can provide economies of scale and data standardization that will reduce the costs of sharing data to DOJ and other systems .
Data Warehouse Model
Currently in California , the following regions are utilizing the data warehouse model , allowing them to interface with companies like Coplink using one interfaced data point :
ÎÎ ARJIS ( San Diego with 10 contributing data sources )
ÎÎ
ARIES ( Contra Costa County with 93 data sources combined )
ÎÎ Sonoma County ( joint powers contract solution )
ÎÎ Los Angeles (?? NCRIC is Bay Area
ÎÎ Orange County ( ILJAOC )
ÎÎ San Bernardino County
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