National Crime Information Center

The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) is the nation's most extensive criminal justice information system. NCIC, which is maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), contains more than 24 million records and provides users with information on everything from missing and wanted persons to stolen vehicles to criminal records. More than 19,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States and Canada can access NCIC via their computers. GAO testified that NCIC was vulnerable to misuse from individuals with authorized access, or "insiders," because of the (1) system's inherent risks and (2) control limitations in some state criminal justice information systems through which users access NCIC. In one case, a former law enforcement officer in Arizona obtained NCIC information from other officers and used it to track down and murder his girlfriend. In another example, a computer operator in Pennsylvania did background searches for her drug-dealer boyfriend, who had asked her to comb through the criminal history records to see whether new clients might be undercover agents. Although proposed security upgrades should address NCIC's vulnerability, potential capability and implementation limitations could diminish their effectiveness. GAO also found that the FBI and states were not systematically assessing the extent and the nature of NCIC misuse. GAO recommends that (1) Congress pass legislation with strong criminal penalties for misuse of NCIC, which will serve as a deterrent, and (2) NCIC's security policy requirements be reevaluated.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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