Identity Insight (II)

Executive Summary

Currently, the intelligence production within Federal Policing (FP) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is extremely time consuming, labour intensive and inefficient. Searches for persons from operational data are performed on disparate computer systems/databases: namely RCMP Records Management Systems (RMS's), PROS and PRIME, as well as Major Case Management (MCM) files, namely Evidence & Report (E&R). The multitude of systems, in which data needs to be extracted separately, limits the accuracy of the results returned. There is currently no centralized system in the RCMP that collects and integrates data containing person records to contain all known information of the person(s) in one location. This results in a false belief by the investigators that they have a complete view for a person(s) and their associations.

With an advancement of technology, there is already a solution existing in the market to support the sophisticated requirements of the Criminal Intelligence (CI) community, with features such as advanced searching, identity resolutions and analytical capabilities. This technology is the result of years of experience in this particular domain on the part of the vendors. The use of this technology will provide FP with a powerful analytical tool that will assist in the development of better capabilities in support of Intelligence-led Policing. The introduction of this technology will greatly advance our intelligence data mining process from a largely manual analytical process to an automated process, thereby maximizing our human resources' effort as shown in the successful Pilot version, concluded in October 2013.

This single institution PIA is being submitted on behalf of the RCMP, led by Commissioner Robert Paulson. David Petruska, Analyst with Federal Knowledge Management within Federal Policing has been assigned responsibility for the writing of the PIA. The RCMP's Federal Policing mandate is to:

• Investigate drugs and organized crime, economic crime, and terrorist criminal activity;
• Enforce Federal statutes;
• Secure Canada's border;
• Conduct international capacity building, liaison and peacekeeping; and
• Ensure the safety of major events, state officials, dignitaries and foreign missions.

The authority to collect information is based on the RCMP's statutory and Common Law policing duties, within the current purposes outlined in our Personal Information Banks (PIBs). As such, a new PIB will not need to be created. A description of Identity Insight (II) will only need to be added to Info Source, Operational Case Records CMP PPU 005 and Criminal Operational Intelligence Records CMP PPU 015.

Identity Insight will provide RCMP Operations with a powerful tool enabling real-time analysis of operational data from multiple sources, and the automated identification of social networks and relationships. The Identity Insight Suite will address a number of current areas of concerns including:

• The resolution of duplicate entities, from single and multiple sources;
• The resolution of relationships;
• The identification of non-obvious relationships;
• The automation of association charts through the i2 interface; and
• The quality and integrity of data being analyzed

The use of Identity Insight will significantly raise the level of automation in the intelligence workflow, and therefore increase the timeliness, accuracy and relevancy of products in support of operational decision-making. Identity Insight will facilitate the research, analysis and operational workflows by enhancing the de-confliction of person entities, and their associations, in RCMP data.

Associated to this II Project comes various areas of risks that have been identified and categorized. II will be using personal information stored in the RCMP Operational databases, which deals with sensitive personal information, including detailed profiles, allegations or suspicions as is relates to Criminal Investigation and enforcement, with II focusing on Criminal Intelligence. As such, the program's use of personal information for external administrative purposes affects certain individuals, in that greater insight will be afforded to analysts and investigators to more corporately known information on offenders. The application will be solely used within our institution and on a long term basis to assist in the accuracy of the RCMP's information and the productivity of our personnel. The personal information is used in a system that has connections to at least one other system within the RCMP network.

Upon completion of a Threat and Risk Assessment (TRA) report, this initiative was found to be at a low level of risk (assessed risk), was officially certified and accredited by the RCMP's Departmental Security Branch (DSB), and is in compliance with the Policy on Government Security (PGS) and Operational Security Standard: Management of Information Technology Security (MITS) both issued by Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

The RCMP's target risk is low. Safeguards were recommended to lower the risk and the recommendations were prioritized.

Priority Three Recommendation: The II recovery procedures are to be documented.

Date modified:

2016-05-10