Police National Computer (PNC) in the UK - Some information

Hope this is in the right section, feel free to move if it is not.

This is some information about the PNC I have discovered while doing some other research.

The Police National Computer (PNC)

Location Hendon London
Disaster recovery location unkown at present however was based at Buncefield, until a fire revealed its
location and it was moved to a new location.

- Time line -
1974 - PNC stolen vehicle database, originally a dual-configuration Unisys Corp A15 mainframe
1991 - Updated to 62MIPS Siemens 7.500/H120-P Mainframe with 192MB ram running Siemens BS2000 OS
the upgrade also allowed the Adabas/Natural database software, connection was via a private
BT X25 network - cost ~20Million UK pounds
2003 march 31st - Disaster recovery site opened at Buncefield
2005 december Buncefield Fire
2006 january data moved off site
2006 Feb 15th Interim disaster recover located back at Hendon data center
2006 July 12th - fire opposite hendon data center causes concern but does not effect PNC
2006 october - Upgraded to Seimens S190-150's 15CPUs (1 hotswap cpu) 128GB ram per machine 32 fibrechannels X25 is no longer used and was migrated over to tcp/ip
2006 december - New disaster recovery site starts being built
2007 feb - all hardware moved to new disaster recovery site
2007 March - new disaster recovery site fully operational.

Current storage capacity is approx 47Terrabytes provided by a combination Dell DAE2 drive arrays and EMC Centera hardware - this capacity is fully expandable to grow with the PNC
The data warehouse is developed under and Oracle 10g RAC which interfaces with a despoke web service application, remote connection is provided by the CJX(criminal justice extranet)

the Dell Dae2 drive arracys are 2Gbit fibrechannel arbitrated loop based, the enclosure is 3U high (5.25inches) and has 15 3.5disks, upto 8 DAE2 can be attached per fibrechannel (the current S190's can take upto 32 of these per machine - 3840 drives per machine)

As of march 2009 Currently running Adabas/Natural database version 3 and upgrading to 4 soon. with an IBM RUP framework of toolsets for configuration management

Backups

Although no single snapshot is kept of the database, but an audit of changes is kept in backups which are taken 3 times a week with the oldest being overwritten by the newest.

The PNC can retain around 300 items of interest about each individual (the Names database has 253 fields and where these have been sub-divded are counted as one field)
An arrest/summons reference number is generated after nominal data is entered (eg name/sex/etc)
the following mandatory fields are then completed
* Process stage
* Process stage date
* Fingerprints taken
* DNA details
* Name charged
* Arrest date of birth
* Arresting officer
* ACPO offence code
* Offence start date
* Offence location
* Offence location description.

Although it is possible to search the entire database by offence code (find all car theives for example) this function has not been implimented.
Changes to the PNC software and those at the database level (NOT DATA) is kept for 3years and recorded in hard paper copies.

The PNC is limited to only bring back 2000 results for any search, it is not clear if this limit is in place for Mi5/Mi6

The PNC is made from several databases such as:
* Names File - This contains information about people who have been convicted, cautioned or recently arrested. These people are referred to as nominals and can be placed on the PNC as wanted/missing if they are sought in connection with a crime, on warrant and failed to appear at court, AWOL from military service or reported missing. The PNC will retain information on all recent previous arrests, convictions and what sentence was handed down, as well as any impending offences. The PNC will also store information such as all previous addresses, co-defendants, local intelligence, marks/scars and descriptions and will include links to fingerprints and DNA. As the PNC is a text only system, without graphical information, it doesn’t hold photographs but will provide information relating to the location of photos taken whilst someone is in custody.
* Vehicle File - This contains details of the registered keeper of a motor vehicle, as well as other information from the DVLA as to the vehicle status such as whether the tax has expired. The police can also add reports as to whether a vehicle is stolen, missing or believed to be involved in a crime, and so on. The vehicle record system is linked to the Motor Insurance Database maintained by the Motor Insurers Bureau which can also confirm if the vehicle is insured together with details of any policy dates and number, the insurance company and any named drivers. There is also a link to computerized MOTs through The Vehicle Operator Services Agency (VOSA) which shows the expiration date of the MOT tests for vehicles.
* Drivers File - This contains information on several million people who hold a driving licence or are disqualified from holding one, including information relating to test passes, endorsements and licence entitlements. The DVLA is responsible for this database.
* Property File - Different types of stolen and found property can be placed onto the PNC system including firearms, trailers, plant and equipment, engines, animals and marine craft.

below is an image of the s190 system (I do not know how many of these are in place at each site)



Has anyone any more information about this system (btw all this research is pooled from several reliable sources so please only provide proveable data rather than random crap from wikipedia)

reply to post by freakyclown


Very interesting. Can you cite your sources?

I compiled and crossreferenced this information from several places , however as this was not what I was actually researchign at the time, I just kept information in a file and then compiled it together for this post, alot of it was from presentations given by the NPIA/PITO, Fujitsu, ACPO, jobsites, etc

However although some of it came from internal documentation I must stress that all the information IS publicly availble except the location of the new DR site. The bulk of my time was spent cross referencing data to validate any information I published - If you look at some sources they list the current hardware as s170s which is blatently wrong if you look at some presentations by the NPIA/PITO which state s190s were delivered. Same as the x25 (if you believe wikipedia) which has now been phased out as pointed out during another presentation of plan of action by the NPIA/PITO.

I wish I had kept every single source I collected from but hindsight is a wonderful thing, my only excuse is I never planned on collecting together all of this information in one place or release it.