Victoria Police outsources user verification for online report delivery

By David Braue

With its launch of a new service facilitating access to policeincident reports, Victoria Police joins the growing trend to outsourceidentity and access management processes when making large databasesavailable online.

Extending Victoria Police's Public Enquiry Service (PES) online, the newservice allows approved parties - mostly insurance claims handlers needingto verify details of lodged claims - to lodge requests for copies of policeaccident or crime reports online.

Previously, the system for handling reports was heavily labour-oriented,often taking several weeks before PES staff could deliver the results of anygiven application. This delay cascaded across the rest of the insuranceclaims handling process, resulting in hold-ups at every stage.

Providing online access to such sensitive documents requires care be takento screen and manage access rights for what is currently more than 50registered users. CITEC Confirm has taken over this task, vettingapplications and performing background investigations to meet VictoriaPolice standards for access to the records. It also manages the actualaccess to the Victoria Police, providing a customised gateway that ensuresonly authorised users can even see the interface for lodging PES requests.

The PES deployment echoes a similar system that CITEC has been runningwithin the Queensland Police Service since 1993. Through its Web site ( www.confirm.com.au), CITEC Confirm also managesaccess to 39 other government databases containing information such as landtitles, business names, bankruptcy proceedings and other judicial andadministrative documents. It services also include training and supportingusers through its own help desk.,p>"By putting content owners online, we can reduce the number of people thatcome to their counters," says Rhonda Cunningham, director of informationbrokerage with CITEC. "We provide additional levels of security aroundpolice databases, so that authorised access is available to a closed usergroup. The biggest challenge has been getting user requirements frominsurance companies, then developing prototypes to get the right solution tofit in with their business processes."

By allowing an outside party to manage user access according to strictpolicy guidelines, Victoria Police reduces the risk it might have carried bydeveloping its own authentication system; users can't get anywhere near thePolice Web site until they've been checked and cross-checked by CITEC. CITECauthentication processes are regularly checked by internal and externalauditors, and every individual search is recorded and must be justified byusers.

While security and auditing services provide reassurances that only theright people are getting into the system, moving records lodgement onlinepaves the way for significantly improving the efficiency of report delivery.PES staff anticipate faster turnaround of applications because requests willbe in a standard format and can be more easily sorted, prioritised andaccessed.

Although the end result of the query is still the shipment of paperdocuments, later this year the service is expected be expanded so thatvalidated users can access digital images of the documents online.

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