Thursday, August 11, 2011.
Soon law enforcement agencies in South Dakota will be sharing data on a new level. A project steered by the South Dakota Office of the Attorney General, Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) called Connect SD will create an exchange hub to link law enforcement databases from all over the state. Officers will be able to access this shared data, which will also be reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Data Exchange (N-DEx).
The selection committee for the project chose Zuercher Technologies, a leading public safety software vendor, to launch the new technology. In partnership with Sypherlink, a company with expertise in harmonizing data exchanges, Zuercher Technologies will bring together information from local law enforcement agencies’ Records Management Systems (RMSs), Computer Aided Dispatch Systems (CADs), Jail Management Systems (JMSs), and DCI databases such as the Sex Offender Registry and NIBRS. All this information will be standardized and available to law enforcement officials across the state from an easily accessible, web-based application.
Currently, data sharing exists between law enforcement agencies in South Dakota on a mostly informal basis. The Connect SD initiative was begun because there were often challenges of neighboring law enforcement agencies investigating the same criminal suspects and crime trends without knowing it. Once the project connects the disparate systems, officers will be able to reference people, addresses, vehicles, and relationships among them that were not previously identifiable. The effectiveness of law enforcement officials will be improved and the number of unsolved cases is expected to be significantly reduced.
Zuercher Technologies has a strong history of providing important programs to law enforcement in the state of South Dakota, including the state level National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) repository, the 24/7 Sobriety Project, the South Dakota Sturgis Rally Field Identification Database (SRFID), and CAD, RMS, or JMS software for 15 agencies across the state.
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About Zuercher Technologies, LLC
Zuercher Technologies, LLC provides best of breed public safety software solutions to agencies across the U.S. under its flagship product, ledsSuite©, encompassing Computer-Aided Dispatch, Mapping, Criminal Investigations, Crime Analysis, Jail, Civil, Financial, Records, Public Administration, and Mobile CAD and Records. Founded in 2003, Zuercher Technologies is based in Sioux Falls, SD. Information about Zuercher Technologies’ products and services can be found at www.zuerchertech.com.
About Sypherlink
Sypherlink is a data-integration-software and NIEM conformance provider that intelligently links critical information across disparate data sources. The company’s products and solutions are based upon its core, patented heuristics-matching technology for automating the data discovery and mapping process. Sypherlink’s National Information Exchange (NIE) Gateway solution combines this unique technology with pre-built interfaces to rich information sources, and conformance to the national information exchange model (NIEM) to minimize the time and effort for law enforcement and public safety agencies to become NIEM conformant. The company’s client/partner base includes global 1,000 organizations, government agencies, and leading systems integrators and application/tool providers. Sypherlink is a member of the IJIS Institute. Sypherlink is a Saama Technologies company.