Technology Sectors
Intelligence platform integration with the FBI eGuardian system
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Steve Serrao |
A widely held belief in the law enforcement community is that the more information sharing that takes place among different agencies, the better opportunities law enforcement officials have to connect the dots on possible criminal activity. Tips and leads, or Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) from citizens, can help piece together what otherwise might remain silos of pertinent clues or data -- never a connection to be made.
The FBI has placed increased emphasis on suspicious activities and connecting the dots. Its eGuardian system, deployed over the last three years, is a nationwide SARs system focused on terrorism-related tips and leads. Fusion centers, and state and local law enforcement, forward SARs to the FBI, which evaluates them with the resources of the Department of Justice’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), made up of FBI -- as well as state and local -- investigators.
eGuardian is delivering great benefits. As a result of the eGuardian system, law enforcement agencies are realizing increased efficiencies, the elimination of repetitive tasks and the instant availability of tips and leads to a nationwide law enforcement audience.
When integrated with intelligence management platforms, eGuardian delivers even more benefits, including increased productivity, increased processing speed, improved data quality and enhanced feedback.
By automating a SAR entry into the eGuardian system, analysts and other staff can focus on more strategic and value-added tasks, such as the evaluation process to ensure the credibility of the SAR, as well as identify any immediate threats that are related to this information.
Automatic extraction means a SAR is available within minutes of approval to enter into eGuardian, which allows better management of suspicious data at hand and capitalizes on the FBI’s JTTF relationships.
Extensive validation options help deliver clean data into the eGuardian system and avoid any human errors while inputting a manual data entry of a SAR into eGuardian.
Equally important is electronic feedback -- such as eGuardian unique identifications, submission dates and time stamps. Such feedback is delivered to the submitting agency right after a SAR gets entered into the eGuardian system. This feature allows law enforcement agencies to view SARs submitted to eGuardian within their intelligence management platforms directly.
Automating the distribution of SARs eliminates the need for law enforcement personnel to re-enter information and provides a more efficient process for the collection and evaluation of suspicious activities. Our collective homeland security is the better for it.
Captain Stephen G. Serrao, a former New Jersey State Police counterterrorism bureau chief, now serves as director of law enforcement solutions on the Memex Solutions Team at SAS. He can be reached at:
