Global Privacy and Information Quality Working Group (GPIQWG)

The Global Privacy and Information Quality Working Group (GPIQWG) assists government agencies, institutions, and other justice entities in ensuring that personal information is appropriately collected, used, and disseminated within integrated justice information systems.

The mission of the GPIQWG is to advance the adoption of privacy and information quality policies by justice system participants that promote the responsible collection, handling, management, review, and sharing of (personal) information about individuals. The GPIQWG accomplishes information sharing that promotes the administration of justice and public protection by preserving the integrity and quality of information; facilitating the sharing of appropriate and relevant information; protecting individuals from consequences of inappropriate gathering, use, and release of information; and permitting appropriate oversight.

Historically, GPIQWG has focused their development on privacy policy resources, such as the Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Information Quality Policy Development for the Justice Decision Maker executive overview and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy Development Guide and Implementation Templates guidebook. Recently, GPIQWG has published two new products in the privacy and civil liberties series: a Policy Development Checklist and Ten Steps to a Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy. The group is now focusing much of its attention towards information quality (IQ) and the development of a series of IQ resources.  The first document to be published in this series is an information quality fact sheet, entitled Information Quality:  The Foundation for Justice Decision Making.

Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy Development Guide and Implementation Templates: Policy Development Checklist - The Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy Development Guide and Implementation Templates: Policy Development Checklist is a companion piece to the GPIQWG's hallmark resource, the Global Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy Development Guide and Implementation Templates (''Privacy Guide'') and serves as a self-assessment checklist to assist privacy policy authors, project teams, and agency administrators in evaluating whether their draft policy has incorporated all of the Privacy Guide components.

Ten Steps to a Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy - This one-page executive overview is targeted to high-level, managerial, and administrative functions within an agency to demonstrate the ten core steps an agency can follow to develop a privacy and civil liberties policy.

Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Information Quality Policy Development for the Justice Decision Maker is geared toward the justice executive to engender awareness about the topic and is a high-level, easy-to-read booklet that makes the case for privacy and civil liberties policy development and underscores the imperativeness of leadership in promoting privacy issues within justice agencies. This executive overview is an excellent primer and educational tool that applies settled privacy principles to justice information sharing systems, addresses applicable legal mandates, and makes recommendations on best practices to ensure privacy, civil liberties, and information quality protection.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy Development Guide and Implementation Templates is geared toward justice practitioners charged with developing or revising an agency’s privacy and civil liberties policy and is a practical, hands-on resource that provides sensible guidance for developing a policy. Using this Guide is the next logical step for those justice entities that are ready to move beyond awareness into the actual policy development process. It assists agencies in articulating privacy and civil liberties obligations in a manner that protects the justice agency, the individual, and the public and makes it easier to do what is necessary—share critical justice information.

Included in this guide is an essential tool for justice system practitioners to use when drafting comprehensive privacy policies, entitled Privacy, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Policy Templates for Justice Information Systems, contained in Appendix A. Developed by DOJ's Global in partnership with Alan Carlson and the Justice Management Institute, the templates were developed for use by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, courts, or other justice system agencies or jurisdictions at the local, state, regional, tribal, territorial, or federal level. The templates are relevant to the administration of justice, strategic and tactical operations, and national security responsibilities and are intended to address all types of public safety and public protection risks and threats, whether criminal or from natural disasters.

The information quality fact sheet, entitled Information Quality: The Foundation for Justice Decision Making, is a new primer on information quality targeted towards justice leaders and justice information sharing system administrators, and emphasizes the importance of good, or ''quality,'' data that enables agencies to perform their jobs efficiently and effectively. The justice system depends on information sharing. With the rapid proliferation and evolution of new technologies, increased data sharing requires increased responsibility for information quality to ensure sound justice decision making. This fact sheet explores information quality as a multidimensional concept encompassing critical relationships among multiple attributes, such as timeliness, accuracy, and relevancy. Hypothetical scenarios are presented depicting situations of good and poor information quality, as well as suggestions on what you can do about information quality. Research and resource references are also provided for further reading. DOJ's Global and GPIQWG plan to develop and make available additional information quality resources in an ongoing to commitment to improve the quality of information law enforcement and public safety officials rely on every day.

The GPIQWG addresses accuracy and reliability issues involved in updating criminal history records with subsequent events (e.g., prosecution, adjudication) when those events cannot be linked to an arrest notation previously entered into the criminal history repository. This work includes exploring biometrics technologies and addressing the privacy and information quality issues these technologies present.

In order to formulate a unified and comprehensive approach to privacy and information quality issues, the GPIQWG actively coordinates with the other Global working groups.