Supporting Statement - Mobile Fingerprint Capture Information Request

OMB Control No. # 0693-0033 – NIST Generic Clearance for Program Evaluation Data Collections

Mobile Fingerprint Capture Information Request

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

1. Explain who will be surveyed and why the group is appropriate to survey.

The program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) supporting the survey is the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) division. PSCR works with first responders and public safety officials to help identify and execute research goals to improve public safety communications technologies. PSCR is exploring ways to utilize already-deployed mobile technologies to provide a portable, on-the-scene fingerprint capture solution that would save public safety personnel resources and potentially save lives. The path to capable mobile fingerprinting could be made more accessible by addressing gaps in technology that have hindered development. To accomplish this, PSCR is launching the Mobile Fingerprint Capture for First Responders Challenge in Winter/Spring 2021. Winning solutions will focus on innovations across a variety of mobile device operating systems that advance the state of fingerprint capture technologies. In order to prepare for this challenge, PSCR would like to collect information on the current technology gaps that have hindered the development of capable mobile fingerprint capture.

This survey will be sent to approximately 50 individuals representing various parts of law enforcement including those who take fingerprints in the field, records processing personnel who manage law enforcement databases, and key members of leadership, such as the Chief of Police, who would authorize the purchase and use of a mobile fingerprint application. This survey will target this audience for feedback regarding what they see as the biggest technical and procedural challenges to meeting the goal of mobile fingerprint capture on smart devices and inquires if they have other contacts who would be interested in playing a role in this initiative. Soliciting this information from this user group is appropriate to survey because they play a crucial role in identifying technology gaps and developing a solution.

2. Explain how the survey was developed including consultation with interested parties, pre-testing, and responses to suggestions for improvement.

The Mobile Fingerprint Capture Information Request was developed as a collaborative effort consulting multiple parties including our NIST sponsor, John Beltz; PSCR team member, Bill Fisher; and NIST technology subject matter expert, John Libert. Our team evaluated the data that needs to be collected to run a successful workshop and customized our survey accordingly with 14 questions.

3. Explain how the survey will be conducted, how customers will be sampled if fewer than all customers will be surveyed, expected response rate, and actions your agency plans to take to improve the response rate.

The survey will be distributed as a Google Form to approximately 50 individuals who have previously registered to participate in a workshop session around the same topic. While the survey is not required or mandatory for recipients to submit, we will encourage them to complete it to help improve the success of research initiatives sponsored by PSCR. We expect a high response rate as the recipients of the survey will have already registered for the workshop and are be some of those most impacted by the results of future research. If needed, to improve the response rate, PSCR will follow up individually with each recipient to encourage participation in the survey.

4. Describe how the results of the survey will be analyzed and used to generalize the results to the entire customer population.

Survey results will be used to inform and scope participant discussion of hardware, software, and backend technology gaps, operational gaps, and procedural gaps inhibiting public safety’s current use of mobile fingerprint scanning capabilities, as well as technical or operational requirements that must be met to produce a viable Mobile Fingerprint Capture solution for public safety. Collecting technology gap identification and requirements data before the meeting will enable PSCR to facilitate a more time efficient and technically accurate meeting. Stakeholders will be able to build on, challenge, and contextualize peer responses during the event rather than starting the discussion from scratch after the meeting begins.