Over the past three years, federal, state, and local officials1 have worked tirelessly to ensure that robust privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties protections are integrated into fusion center policies and business processes. These efforts have included developing Baseline Capabilities2 and model privacy policy templates and providing training and subject-matter expertise to fusion centers. The goal is for every fusion center to establish a comprehensive framework for protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. The framework includes:

o Developing and implementing a written privacy policy that:

Is “at least as comprehensive” as the Information Sharing Environment
(ISE) Privacy Guidelines.

Addresses the requirements to participate in the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR)Initiative (NSI), as appropriate.

Meets the requirements of state and local privacy and civil liberties laws, ordinances, and regulations designed to protect the privacy of individuals and organizations.

o Designating a fusion center Privacy Official.

o Providing annual training to personnel on privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties protections.

o Conducting local outreach and collaboration with privacy and civil liberties advocacy groups.

This framework leverages the results of a two-year pilot project that demonstrated that local implementation of a uniform privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties framework is critical to enabling the sharing of information across jurisdictions.

Fact Sheet: Enhancing the Privacy, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Framework for State and Major Urban Fusion Centers