Since the 1960s, the go-to resource for tracking wanted persons, stolen materials, and criminal histories has been the FBI’s National Criminal Information Center, known better as NCIC.
A huge upgrade — years in the making — is now operational. Called Next Generation Identification, or NextGen, the new system offers search methods and records tracking never before possible.
NextGen is not part of NCIC. Instead, it runs in parallel, and has similar but separate rules for its use and management.
Several Major Upgrades
Possibly the biggest refinement is in the way the system indexes and searches for biometric identifiers. Biometrics is the quantification of physical characteristics to information suited for digital indexing and retrieval.
Most people can recognize faces, for example, and associate them with a name or some other identifying information. A biometric index of a face combines the distance and angle data from various facial characteristics, and uses a formula to resolve it to a number. When an image of the same face is presented to the system and the same formula used to generate a representative number, the system can tell you, “Here is a list of possible matches to your photo.”
If the image of your subject is already in the system, it will likely find it for you.
These same biometric principles can also index other identifying features, such as scars, marks, or tattoos (SMT), but these can’t be compared visually, as facial photos can. SMT can be queried via text descriptions.
Such information submitted to the NextGen system will need to conform to the FBI’s Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification (EBTS). The details are highly technical, but it’s a safe bet that the providers of your agency’s CAD/RMS are working on or have already produced software compatible with it.
Photos submitted for comparison against the Interstate Photo System (IPS) will be run for possible matches to photos already in the system. The reference photo gallery is composed of images collected from mug shots and other photos of SMT, all taken when a person is booked or when photos are submitted to the FBI with a set of fingerprints.
FBI Software Free to Eligible Agencies
Contrary to the information spread by some privacy advocates, photos from drivers’ license bureaus and other photos not associated with a criminal identity are not part of the reference library. If a person has never been arrested and booked, it’s unlikely their face will appear in the IPS collection.
One possible exception to that rule lies with another NextGen index, the IPS Unsolved Photo File (UPF). If a law enforcement agency has a photo of an unknown individual associated with a felony crime against persons, it can be included in the UPF for comparison with other photos submitted thereafter. Any crime against persons as defined under the Uniform Crime Reports qualifies for inclusion.
When a photo is submitted to the IPS for comparison against the database, the user will be able to select between two and 50 candidates (possible matches) for review in the response. If the user doesn’t make a preference selection, the default return is 20 candidates.
There are also demographic filters the user can use to limit the search, both to limit the number of candidates and provide a faster response. A search can be limited to a certain geographical area, or by age, gender, race, or other factors.
The candidate list will include the reference photo that was matched, and that individual’s Universal Control Number (UCN). The complete pedigree of the candidate is obtainable by re-submitting the UCN to the relevant FBI systems.
Toward the goal of providing the best results, the FBI offers Universal Face Workstation software free to all agencies eligible to participate in NextGen. The software allows agencies to prepare face search transactions, limited face photo enhancement capabilities, candidate list responses, and case management capabilities.
The Value of Rap Back
Besides the new biometric indexes, NextGen includes a new “Rap Back” service. Rap Back is for people who are under investigation, under correctional supervision, or who have sensitive occupations where an arrest or conviction could affect their suitability to continue in that occupation.
When someone is included in Rap Back, any arrest or conviction is reported to the agency that requested the person be included in Rap Back. Previously, people could sustain arrests in distant jurisdictions, and the agency monitoring them would know only if they ran a repeat criminal history inquiry. Now, the agency will be notified immediately if a new arrest or conviction entry is submitted to the FBI.
As with criminal history information, Rap Back data is considered highly confidential. It cannot be disclosed to people outside the agency without either permission from the affected individual or release by a competent court. People entered into Rap Back have to be notified of their inclusion, and agencies making the entries have to periodically reaffirm their need and authorization to keep the person included in Rap Back.
This reaffirmation strategy is similar to the requirement that arrest warrants entered into the Wanted Persons System be regularly validated to ensure the warrant is still active, and has not been served or recalled.
