As the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) gains more traction and more users, we may see more state and local entities use NIEM standards in their information sharing as well as criminal justice information systems. NIEM is currently in version 2.0 and this past week at the IJIS Institute's Winter Industry Briefing, it was the topic over several discussions.

Justin Murphy, Deputy Director of the Department of Justice (DOJ), discussed some of the successes of NIEM along with its value at both the federal and state and local level. The advantage of NIEM is that it provides a common language that can be used across the country. It also enables public safety officials, from the field officer entering in an incident report, to a fusion center command center investigating a terrorism suspect, the ability to work together without the same number of barriers as there had been previously. Mr. Murphy explained that in 2009, 60% of all Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data was NIEM compliant, along with more widespread use in other regional and national information sharing programs.

Part of the future of NIEM includes Information Technology renewal and to extend the life of existing information. This also goes hand in hand with bridging unstructured data with NIEM so all information, at all levels is available to all agencies and localities. Cloud computing and storage options of the future will have a direct effect on NIEM and state and local information sharing.

It is important to understand that as city, county and even state governments seek to build information sharing databases; vendors need to be aware of NIEM and the benefits that it will provide to those localities. NIEM standards require training at both the state and local level and for vendors.