Technology Center
Information Sharing Technology
Today's Issues:
Homeland Security has mandated that "...it is the responsibility of the state and local governments as well as private sector organizations to cooperate fully with the Director [or Secretary of Homeland Security] in the development of the trusted information network and associated enterprise architecture to implement government-wide information sharing, and in the management and acquisition of information technology consistent with applicable law." The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington: GPO, 2004)
Technology Solution:
Since the terror attacks of September 11, the question that has gone unanswered is how to best facilitate rapid sharing of dynamic information among government agencies. Being able to pull information from one legacy database to populate another in an effort to quickly identify a criminal has been cumbersome to say the least. That was true until a standardized platform called XML (eXtensible Markup Language) was created to convert information understood by only one data source to be understood by ALL sources.
In an effort to standardize the use of this technology, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, together with the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative and XML Structure Task Force, created a Global XML Data Model (Global JXDM) in which information can be seamlessly exchanged between public safety and justice systems. This model removes the burden from agencies to independently create exchange standards, and because of its extensibility, there is more flexibility to deal with unique agency requirements and changes. Through the use of a common vocabulary that is understood system-to-system, this technology enables access from multiple sources and reuse in multiple applications.