Police Information Sharing in Canada

Balancing Security, Efficiency and Collaboration

This project was undertaken by an external, independent researcher to explore, and provide information about, an issue or topic. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Government of Canada.

Summary

Successful policing depends on information sharing - both within a police force and without. Police exchange information and communicate with colleagues, other police services, members of the public and with political representatives. Recent experiences such as the September 11 terrorist attack have underlined the importance of information sharing, but they have also reminded us about the importance of information security. How are police services responding to these conflicting pressures? This report details the results of a 2003 RCMP survey to assess information sharing and how access to information technology facilitates sharing.

Our objective was to ascertain how the law enforcement community shared information with colleagues within their own organization, as well as with interested parties from the outside. It was planned to compare these results with those of a similar survey conducted in 2000 (LeBeuf, Paré, Belzile, 2000).

The survey was used as the foundation paper for the November 2003 Conference on Information Sharing held in Montreal under the auspices of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP).