Five Major Jurisdictions Test Network Connection

by Valerie Kalfrin
06/01/05

TAMPA -- The leads in a recent Tampa robbery were slim: a general description of a man and woman involved, the man's first name and the woman's nickname.

In the past, an investigator working the case might have tried what Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee calls a potluck approach: phoning or faxing neighboring jurisdictions to ask whether descriptions or names ring a bell.

A computer system that went online in mid-April allowed a Tampa robbery detective to identify two possible suspects within hours.

Called the Tampa Bay Security Network, the system enables police in Tampa, Clearwater and St. Petersburg, and sheriff's offices in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties to share information unlike ever before, officials said Tuesday.

It contains information from dispatch and arrest records, traffic citations, the state's sex offender database -- in short, anyone's contact with law enforcement in these jurisdictions, said Lorelei Bowden, a Hillsborough sheriff's employee and the project's manager.

"I like to refer to it as a Google for cops," said Tampa police Maj. Jane Castor, comparing it to the popular Internet search engine.

Bowden demonstrated the system Tuesday at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Tampa office. The system is based on Coplink, a database technology launched in 1998 by Knowledge Computing Corp., of Tucson, Ariz., and used by more than 100 jurisdictions nationwide.

The Tampa robbery detective is one of 48 Tampa officers testing the system over 90 days, Castor said. Eventually, the roughly 3,000 patrol officers in these five jurisdictions will have the system in their patrol cars, enabling them to know about people other officers encounter, situations ranging from arrest warrants to 911 calls.

Law enforcement agencies historically have been reluctant to share information, Pinellas County Sheriff Jim Coats said, but the possibilities of the system intrigued them.

"We've only touched the tip of the iceberg," Clearwater Police Chief Sid Klein said.

The network is funded with $2.3 million in federal and state domestic security grants, Gee said. Its third phase, in July 2006, will link all law enforcement agencies in the state.

Unlike the Matrix network, a national crime and terrorism database whose funding ran out in April, the security network does not include consumer electronic transactions such as gas bills and airline ticket purchases. It focuses on information that any person can obtain through Florida public record laws, Bowden said. This includes field interrogation reports -- forms that officers and deputies fill out when they interview someone -- but no other surveillance or intelligence data.

Even so, the database should be regulated closely, said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "It should provide for citizens to correct any inaccuracies," he said.