Florida's National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) FY2015

The goal of the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) is to improve the Nation's safety and security by enhancing the quality, completeness, and accessibility of criminal history record information and by insuring the nationwide implementation of criminal justice and noncriminal justice background check systems. BJS provides direct financial and technical assistance to the states to improve criminal history and other related records and to build their infrastructure to connect to national record check systems both to supply information and to conduct the requisite checks.

Under the 2015 NCHIP priority areas 1 and 2, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) will use funds to replace Livescan workstations and hire contract programmers to continually maintain their computerized criminal history (CCH) system while they undergo a CCH system replacement.

Under Priority 1, FDLE proposes to replace obsolete livescans to ensure that the infrastructure is developed to connect criminal history records systems to the state record repository or appropriate federal agency record system. As of April 2014, Florida had 41 county jails and 10 Juvenile Assessment Centers (JAC) that were still using livescan devices with the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. Microsoft no longer provides security patches for the XP operating system. If the operating system of these livescan devices were compromised, it could impact the entire Florida Criminal Justice Network. With 2014 NCHIP funding, FDLE received funds to replace livescans for approximately 10 county jails and JACs that have the oldest devices, thus leaving 41 vulnerable devices remaining in use, 33 county jails and 8 JACs throughout Florida.

Under Priority 2, FDLE proposes to address the replacement of the CCH system, which is multi- year project requiring continued approval and implementation of state legislative funding, by using contracted programmers to maintain the existing system. To ensure a seamless transition, minor modifications, enhancements, and/or updates to add or change functionality with disposition, firearm, biometric identification systems, and other related applications that interface or use CCH. Programming to CCH is required to ensure these ancillary applications are able to communicate with and retrieve information from the CCH and maintain business workflows. In addition, CCH programming helps ensure the availability of NICS disqualifying records available via III and increasing the percent of potentially disqualifying records that contain the necessary final court dispositions.

(CA/NCF)