Lista de preguntas más frecuentes

NCIC stands for the National Crime Information Center, which is an FBI system used by law enforcement agencies across the country.  The NCIC database currently consists of 21 files. There are seven property files containing records of stolen articles, boats, guns, license plates, parts, securities, and vehicles. There are 14 persons files, including Supervised Release, National Sex Offender Registry, Foreign Fugitive, Immigration Violator, Missing Person, Protection Order, Unidentified Person, Protective Interest, Gang, Known or Appropriately Suspected Terrorist, Wanted Person, Identity Theft, Violent Person, and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Denied Transaction. The system also contains images that can be associated with NCIC records to help agencies identify people and property items. The Interstate Identification Index, which contains automated criminal history record information, is accessible through the same network as NCIC.  For more information, visit the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services webpage.

ViCAP stands for the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, which is a nationwide data center designed to collect, collate, and analyze information on crimes of violence, such as homicides, sexual assaults, kidnappings, and missing person cases.  ViCAP is a program of the FBI responsible for the analysis of serial violent and sexual crimes, organizationally situated within the Critical Incident Response Group’s (CIRG) National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). ViCAP fosters the sharing of case information amongst law enforcement agencies across the country.

The National Child Search Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5779, 5780) mandates that every missing child reported to law enforcement be immediately entered into NCIC.  While NamUs poses no restrictions on the timeframe for entering a new missing child or adult cases into the NamUs system, many agencies choose to enter longer-term missing person cases, and/or cases where all investigative leads have been exhausted.  This results in NamUs receiving reports of primarily long-term cases, with 95% of the current published cases in NamUs involving persons missing one year or more. 

All incidents and their controls begin locally, and that will be the same for incidents created in NCI. These users will be vetted professionals who are accustomed to working through an incident management system, and ultimate control of the incident in NCI will reside with the incident owner(s).

NCI is designed so that incidents can be merged and the system will allow for multiple professional users to join incidents as jurisdictional boundaries expand. NCI will also identify duplicate incidents the moment they are entered, so incident creators can collaborate and determine if they need to be combined. Each state, territory, and the District of Columbia will have an NCI state cabinet made up of at least 4, but no more than 10, members. Each state cabinet will then select one state cabinet member to serve on an NCI regional cabinet. These regional cabinets will be organized in the same geographical pattern as FEMA regions. This will pave the way for cross-jurisdictional collaboration and capitalize on already established mutual aid agreements.

Some professional users will have full access and the ability to see all case information, while others will be limited to basic information such as aggregate numbers, time, and place. Incident creators, owners, and administrators will be able to issue and adjust access levels for incident participants.

The public will be able to enter cases if the incident creators and incident owners authorize input from the public, and enable the public incident-specific website. This will be decided incident-by-incident. Whenever appropriate, the public will be able to enter information on persons who are unaccounted-for or safe, but unlike NamUs, public users will only be able to see information they provided on the cases they enter. After entering their report, public users will be able to update the report status (e.g. change unaccounted-for to safe), but they will not be able to see any professional updates to their case.

When a public webpage is launched for an incident, there will be a simple and intuitive road map that guides the user through the steps of case entry. Public users will first need to enter their personal contact information, and then they can immediately begin entering information on the unaccounted-for or safe person.

In some instances, case entry and investigations will remain private, and only professional users will have access. Professional users will access the system through the professional landing page. They can request to join current incidents or be granted automatic access according to their incident-related credentials. Known, unregistered professionals can also be granted access to a specific incident by a “fast-pass” invitation issued by local incident administrators.

Yes. Any individual with internet access to the public portal can use the system.

Translation to and from Spanish will be built-in to the NCI application, and foreign consul notification will be an opt-in feature. Foreign consular officers will also be able to enter safe and unaccounted-for persons into the system. As public users, foreign consular officers can act as liaisons for families and under certain circumstances, they can establish themselves as the point of contact. This will be especially beneficial when language is a barrier, or when access to technology is limited.

Vetted professional users will be assigned specific access levels, per user, per incident. Individual access levels and permissions will be assigned by the incident owners on a local level.