Survey Results in Improved AFIS Information

"Interoperability" refers to the ability of different systems or devices to seamlessly share information or results. The Latent fingerprint Interoperability Survey is the only comprehensive effort to measure the level of interoperability of AFIS maintained by State and local law enforcement agencies for the electronic exchange of latent fingerprint data to support criminal investigations. In the survey, each participating agency responded to questions on topics that included AFIS vendor information, ten-print and palm-print records, latent records, and searching characteristics. State agencies responded to additional questions relevant to their functions, and local agencies responded to questions about their functioning. Currently there is no central registry that lists the systems that criminal justice agencies use. Most States do not know what the local agencies within their State are using. A secondary benefit of the survey has been to generate an extensive list of AFIS points of contact that the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) can use to engage in a continuing dialogue. .Survey findings are expected to be published in 2015. Some of the outcomes of the survey data analysis will be to quantify and understand interoperability at different levels of geographic and jurisdictional detail.