COPLINK Collaboration Agent provides advanced collaboration tools for intra- and inter-jurisdictional information sharing and cooperation. Our primary objective is to develop an architecture for information sharing and collaboration in the law enforcement domain.

The main functionalities of the system include monitoring data on an entity or a search query, locating sergeants/detectives in other units who work on related cases, and sharing useful information for investigation. The system architecture is shown in figure 1. An entity can be a person or a vehicle. It is easy to extend the system to monitor other types of entities within the current architecture.

Figure 1. The system architecture of COPLINK Collaboration System

This case study will illustrate the agent’s major functions. Suppose Officer John Doe is conducting a vehicle search with the searching criteria “LICENSE PLATE contains KPM AND VEHICLE STYLE is 2-DOOR-COUPE AND VEHICLE COLOR is GREEN.” He also chooses the option to be notified if anyone in the Narcotics department performs the same search. He selects the methods with which he wants to be notified, including email, pager, cell phone, and Web messages. He also chooses to let other people see his search. This scenario is shown in figure 2.

This query will be conducted against three jurisdictional databases. Figure 3 shows the matched records returned from those databases. The officer John is able to choose the vehicles he wants to monitor. He chooses the option “Monitor future additions matching your search” so that he will be notified if future records match his searching criteria. He may click on the “details” link of any record shown on this page and start a new search task (figure 4). But he clicks on the button “Add Monitor Tasks.” Monitoring tasks for the checked entities are effective now.

A clerk at Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) has entered a new record of owner change for the vehicle with the license plate “KPM719.” Officer John Doe gets an alert message on his cell phone because he is currently monitoring this vehicle (figure 5).

Another officer also searches for a similar vehicle and he specifies to let other officers know about his search. Officer John Doe is also notified by a Web message in this case (figure 6).

Figure 2. John Doe is conducting a vehicle search
Figure 3. Matched records returned from three databases
Figure 4. Search form with details of a particular record in the result list
Figure 5. Officer John Doe gets an alert message on his cell phone
Figure 6. Officer John Doe gets an online alert message