Persons, Address, Vehicles and Events are the four major cornerstones of police computing. Virtually all information trails connect to one or more of these areas. The Alliance Background Data system has been designed to provide powerful and understandable data searching tools for crime solving, including Soundex, partial name, descriptor, MO and hazard matching. Additional demographic and crime analysis tools allow many of the location-related hit lists to be plotted graphically through Alliance mapping.
The possibility of duplicate records for the same person is minimized via Soundex and DOB crosschecks. Searches that are performed return a hit list showing a percentage of probability for each name. A central byproduct of common flat-file databases used in today’s law enforcement computing is the need to enter multiple records for the same individual without cross-referencing them. This structure makes retrieval of an individual’s department history inefficient and incomplete Alliance not only eliminates the need for multiple record entries per individual, it also employs various tools and checks to prevent accidental double entry of data. Each name entered is compared automatically against all other entries, including aliases, for a Soundex and DOB coincidence. If a match is found, the user is alerted. Similar checks screen input of any agency number (driver’s license, SSN, FBI, etc.) for matches in existing entries.
