Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2019, $934,770)
The goal of the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) is to improve the Nation's safety and security by enhancing the quality, completeness, and accessibility of criminal history record information and by insuring the nationwide implementation of criminal justice and noncriminal justice background check systems. BJS provides direct financial and technical assistance to the states to improve criminal history and other related records and to build their infrastructure to connect to national record check systems both to supply information and to conduct the requisite checks. Under the NCHIP FY 18 project, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS) will conduct one project: MA Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and OneIII (Interstate Identification Index) the Store and Forward Synchronization Project. Under this project, the MA EOPSS will use funds to make enhancements to the AFIS and messaging inquiry systems for the state. Currently, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts maintains fingerprint supported criminal history information in two databases: 1) the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and 2) the Store and Forward file. The AFIS database supports the fingerprint processing and the Store and Forward database supports III messaging and external queries. After the AFIS has completed processing a record, it forwards the record to the Store and Forward database. Currently, only criminal fingerprint records are retained in the Store and Forward database. EOPSS is in the process of rewriting the Store and Forward database. The new system is called OneIII. OneIII will support the retention of all fingerprint types including all standard Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification (EBTS) transactions such as Applicant and Deceased. In addition to the FBI EBTS transactions, OneIII will also include new state only transactions including DNA On File and Sex Offender Registration (SOR). In order to ensure the dissemination of accurate and up to date criminal history records both in state and out of state, synchronization of AFIS and OneIII records is required. In order to conduct the synchronization between the two systems, a number of modifications to AFIS will be required to developed, tested and implemented. (CA/NCF)