Nebraska Administrative Code
Topic - LAW ENFORCEMENT AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Title 78 - NEBRASKA COMMISSION ON LAW ENFORCEMENT AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Chapter 10 - Nebraska Criminal Justice Information System Rules and Regulations
Section 78-10-005 - Definitions

005.01 "Access" means the physical or logical (electronic) privilege to view, modify, or make use of criminal justice information, whether directly or indirectly.

005.02 "Administrative leave" means a temporary leave from employment, including, but not limited to, extended leave, military leave, family medical leave, or suspension from an agency.

005.03 "Criminal Justice Agency" or "CJA" is defined as a court, a governmental agency, or any subunit of a governmental agency which performs the administration of criminal justice pursuant to a statute or executive order and which allocates a substantial part of its annual budget to the administration of criminal justice.

005.04 "Noncriminal Justice Agency" or "NCJA" is an entity or any subunit thereof that provides services primarily for purposes other than the administration of criminal justice.

005.05 "Authorized Agency" means any CJA/NCJA as defined above that has access to NCJIS.

005.06 "Authorized User" means any employee, intern, extern, contractor, volunteer, or other individual or group of individuals, acting on behalf of an Authorized Agency, who has been appropriately vetted by the Authorized Agency and has been granted access to CJI or NCJI via NCJIS.

005.07 "Commission" means the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.

005.08 "Committee" means the Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) Advisory Committee that was established by the Commission in 1995 in response to recommendations from the Nebraska Intergovernmental Data Communications Advisory Council (NIDCAC). The Committee is comprised of representatives from a variety of state and local criminal justice agencies appointed by the Commission's Executive Director.

005.09 "Criminal justice information" or "CJI" refers to all CJIS data necessary for Authorized Agencies to perform their mission and enforce the laws, including but not limited to: biographic or biometric data, identity history, person, organization, property data, division of motor vehicles information, and/or case or incident history. In addition, CJI refers to the CJIS-provided data necessary for Authorized Agencies to make hiring decisions.

005.10 "Patrol Criminal History" or "PCH" means a subset of CJI. Rules that govern the access, use and dissemination of PCH are found in C.F.R. Title 28, Part 20, Subpart C, otherwise known as Criminal history record information "CHRI". This includes identifiable descriptions and notations of arrests, detentions, indictments, information or other formal criminal charges, and any disposition arising therefrom, sentencing, correctional supervision and release. Procedures for storage and dissemination of PCH and/or CHRI are outlined in Title 78 of the Nebraska Administrative Code Chapter 3. PCH and CHRI have the same meaning as found in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-3506.

005.11 "National Crime Information Center " or "NCIC" means an information system that stores CJI that can be queried by appropriate Federal, state, and local law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies. The following files are restricted and accessed via NCJIS and applicable to the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy. Additionally, the following files fall under the CJIS Security Policy:

005.12 "Criminal Justice Information System" or "CJIS" means the computer hardware, software and communication network used for the collection, warehousing, and timely dissemination of relevant CJI to qualified law enforcement, criminal justice agencies, the courts, governmental agencies, and other agencies.

005.13 The "Nebraska Criminal Justice Information System" or "NCJIS " is a secure data portal available to select individuals employed by a criminal justice agency based on their job duties. It provides access to a variety of criminal justice data for operational use. NCJIS allows access to a variety of data in a cost effective and direct method. The Nebraska Criminal Justice Information System is a cooperative project between state and local criminal justice agencies within the state of Nebraska. This project is hosted by the Commission.

005.14 "Improper Access or Breach" means any improper dissemination, unauthorized use, or obtaining CJI, directly or indirectly, whether oral, online or printed form, without statutory authority or reasons specified in the MOU, and includes access for the purpose of confirming the existence or non-existence of CJI or CJIS, or the transmission or non-transmission of information improperly obtained.

005.15 "Secondary dissemination" means the promulgation of CJI from an Authorized Agency to an agency or individual not authorized.

005.16 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is an agreement between the Commission and the CJA/NCJA which provides terms that specify the administrative, procedural, and statutory obligations of agencies regarding the use and dissemination of NCJIS information. The MOU is required for access to and the use of electronic information maintained by the Committee.

005.17 "Data Owner" means the act of having legal rights and complete control over a single piece or set of data elements.

005.18 "Non-Public Information" refers to any documents, facts, figures, or data that have not been released by the data owner.

005.19 "Certification of Identity Form" is a form completed by an individual who is making a public inquiry to obtain records of NCJIS searches of him or her. This document is used by the NCJIS Project Manager to verify the identity of the individual making a public inquiry in order to ensure that records are not wrongfully disclosed. This form must be provided to the NCJIS Project Manager before search records will be released to a requesting party.