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No unauthorized users will be able to see personal identifying information or medical details. At the present time there are no plans to document injured or ill patients in NCI. There will be opportunity for health care providers to include total numbers, and when granted appropriate permissions, they will be able to access information regarding unaccounted-for persons.

A traditional family assistance center (FAC) often becomes the heart of a critical incident and includes multiple services and functions that are not directly associated with victim reporting and identification. It takes time for an FAC to get set up, and in many cases, families are asked to travel to one of these centers to be interviewed by victim information section personnel. NCI can serve as an immediate first-step virtual FAC by allowing investigators to collect vital information almost instantly through the public web portal. Families and/or friends will be able to enter information about a person who is unaccounted-for or safe, and they can enter this information from their mobile devices, a laptop, or desktop.

For disaster victim identification, no matter how large or small the incident, medical examiners and coroners can leverage the same state-of-the-art technology imbedded in NamUs. NCI will provide secure access to incident victim records that can be uploaded from anywhere. Potential duplicates will be flagged by the system for review and consolidation, as appropriate. Proposed matches will be generated to facilitate links between categories. Case management, advanced searching, and matching tools within the application will expedite case associations and resolutions. Intuitive and instant uploading of fingerprints, photos, dental charts and x-rays will allow medicolegal authorities to rapidly and confidently confirm or exclude possible identifications online.

Yes, NCI can be used for pandemics. There are several aspects to victim accounting in a fatality surge such as COVID-19. One is victim identification; another is rapidly keeping an up-to-date census of fatalities. Since NCI can be used by any number of professionals across all jurisdictional boundaries, some of the issues seen in reporting total death counts may be solved.

If the NCI incident owners/creators have enabled the incident-specific public website, effective, immediate messaging can direct the public to the self-service case entry form to relieve some of the surge normally experienced by 911 and 311 call centers. Professionals in traditional emergency call centers can also take and enter information, even if the NCI incident remains private.

The exact scope and specific user access have not yet been established, but the American Red Cross has a representative on NCI-TEC, and NGO’s at all levels are being considered stakeholders.

Law enforcement and medicolegal professionals are encouraged to register to NamUs. Current vetted and sponsored NamUs professional users will not need to undergo additional vetting for NCI and they can use their same username and password for NCI.

Registrations for allied emergency professionals are not yet open but requests for updates can be made by signing up on www.namusinfo.org/nci. Agency access will be through individual users, and agencies will be given the opportunity to upload and credential all of their agency users in bulk.

Family members of missing persons are asked to provide DNA samples that are profiled and uploaded to the National DNA Index System, in an effort to locate missing persons through DNA database searches. These samples, known as Family Reference Samples, are voluntary DNA submissions that are used only in the search for a missing loved one.

The National DNA Index System, or NDIS, is part of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). NDIS contains profiles contributed from federal, state, and local participating DNA laboratories across the country. The DNA profiles uploaded to NDIS are organized into indices, such as the Convicted Offender index. Direct profiles from a missing person, which are derived from items such as toothbrushes or tissue samples, are uploaded to the Missing Person index of CODIS. Profiles for unidentified decedents are uploaded to the Unidentified Human index of CODIS. Profiles from family members are uploaded to the Relatives of Missing Persons Index.

Individuals who provide Family Reference Samples in an effort to locate a missing loved one will have their DNA profiles uploaded to the Relatives of Missing Persons index of CODIS, which is searched only against the Unidentified Human index of CODIS. Family reference profiles are notsearched against any of the criminal indices, such as those containing profiles of convicted offenders or unknown suspects.