CJIS

Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) protects private or sensitve data gathered by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. This could include fingerprints, criminal background information, copies of private documents, video evidence or anything else that could be classified as sensitive.

CJIS plays a critical role in the daily functioning of a large number of government agencies, NGOs, law firms, and private businesses in the criminal justice and law enforcement sector. 

Originally developed in 1992 by the FBI to create a network of data sharing arrangements between policy departments nationwide, CJIS was updated 10 years later to include a security policy that establishes guidelines for the creation, transition, storage and destruction of criminal justice information (CJI). From that point on, any organization or individual that wanted to have access to or share CJI had to comply to these security standards put forth by the FBI. 

The essence of the CJIS Security Policy is to provide the right protocol and guidelines to secure the “full lifecycle of CJI, whether at rest or in transit”. It has the dual effect of protecting national security while also safeguarding individuals’ civil liberties. The policy is comprehensive in that it covers wireless networking, data encryption, and remote access. In order to reflect the ever evolving technology landscape and business models, it is periodically updated. Failure to comply to CJIS can result in fines or even criminal charges. 

As a result of these serious guidelines, migrations of CJI are understandably challenging. They require careful planning and knowledge about the particular obstacles that often plague CJIS compliant data migration projects.