Police Information Portal (PIP) Frequently Asked Questions

Features

What is the Police Information Portal (PIP)?

The PIP is an information sharing tool for Canadian police services. The PIP is a query tool capable of accessing the records management system (RMS) data of participating services regardless of the technology that they use. The PIP was developed by building on the integration initiatives implemented by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and several Ontario and British Columbia police services.

What are the basic capabilities of the PIP?

The basic capabilities of the PIP include:

• Query – searches all participating services’ RMS data and returns consolidated responses
• Publish – publishes RMS information making it available to participating police services with permitted security access
• Drill-down – access additional PIP query result details in report form

What information does the PIP contain?

Information published to the PIP may include:

• General Occurrences (Persons/Vehicles)
• Street Checks (Persons/Vehicles)
• Tickets (Persons/Vehicles)
• Flagged Records (Persons/Vehicles)
• Mug-shots

How will PIP protect federal, provincial and municipal investigative data so as not to jeopardize ongoing investigations, confidential information and other sensitive data?

The PIP is equipped with security levels which control the accessing of information. Participating police services assign security levels at initial configuration when arranging the PIP access. As well, users control the data that gets published to the PIP by selecting the publishing option as they enter occurrences in their RMS. How a user proceeds is dependent on the policy of the participating police service involved.

Participation

What is required to query or publish to the PIP?

Infrastructure Requirements

Following are the infrastructure requirements for police services to access PIP:

• Network Secure Project (NSP) access (a secure sub-set of the National Police Services Network)
• RMS

* For police services using custom RMS applications, an interface to the PIP is required.

In addition, workstations must meet the following specifications:

Use Agreement Requirement

Police services wishing to access information available through the PIP are required to commit to the proper use of the tool. This is achieved by agreeing to the terms and conditions of use outlined in the PIP Protocol document.

How much information must a police service divulge about its system and network?

A police service is required to divulge the following system information to a RCMP administrator for initial configuration purposes only:

• RMS type and version number
• network addressing information

Administration

Who determines what information is provided to the PIP?

Participating police services retain full control of the information published from their RMS to the PIP. As part of the initial set-up, police services determine how the system will be configured thereby controlling what information will be published.

Who controls access and administers the PIP?

A national governance structure has been approved. In this structure, all participating police services will have input directly or through a regional representative regarding the access control and administration of the PIP.

Success Stories

Are there any examples of how electronic information sharing was used by the police community?

The following success stories were published in the Status Report 2005-1 on the Ontario LEIP Project by the London Police Service:

Success story 1

In January 2005, the Ottawa Police High Tech Crime Unit received anonymous information about a male living in Ottawa who was reportedly on probation for possession of child pornography, but was accessing the Internet in violation of his conditions of probation. Ottawa Police Service Detectives conducted an investigation and eventually used information from LEIP and the London Police Service occurrences to confirm the identity of the suspect and develop an investigative strategy that resulted in the male’s eventual arrest on child pornography charges.

Success story 2

In December 2004, Peel Regional Police Services Detective investigators identified a suspect who had entered a local bank the previous week armed with a hand gun. Once the identity of the suspect was known, a LEIP check revealed London Police Service occurrence reports that included information about the suspect’s employer in Toronto . Peel investigators attended that location and positively identified the suspect and arrested him.

Costs

Who pays for the cost of the PIP?

Depending on the Records Management System being used, the costs for police services to have access to the invaluable information contained in the PIP are minimal.

The RCMP will bear the following costs:

• licensing fees required to use the PIP for all participating police services
• the PIP annual maintenance fee
• support and maintenance, for example, user support, policy development and testing

Participating police services are responsible for the following costs:

• connection to the National Police Services network
• Tokens/Smart Cards – where applicable
• technical infrastructure updates, if required
• implementation of policies, procedures and training, if required

Next Steps

What are the next steps involved to begin participating in the PIP?

For more information, please contact the N-III Project Office, Partner Engagement Lead at (613) 841-4982 or pip@rcmp-grc.gc.ca