The Law Enforcement Data Sharing Consortium is an information sharing cooperative involving law enforcement agencies throughout the state of Florida. With 105 agencies actively providing information and 36 other agencies utilizing guest user accounts, there are currently 141 agencies participating in the project. These member agencies, who together make up the Consortium, oversee the development of the information sharing application known as FINDER.

The technological innovation of the FINDER application, developed at the University of Central Florida, allows member agencies to share their low-level police information through a distributed, or federated, design. The FINDER system is a secure, vendor neutral application that allows the law enforcement agency to retain control of its own data in its own RMS; the data never leaves the agency’s control and is never sent to a data warehouse.

The Consortium, utilizing the FINDER application to share data, has met unprecedented success. As of 2006, there have been over 1.8 million queries to the system with documented outcomes of 700 cases closed, 400 arrests made, 537 cases stolen property recovered, and 142 investigative leads generated. The FINDER system is a Global Justice (GJXML) based information sharing application and one that fully meets all technological directives established by the federal government. FINDER has been endorsed by both the Florida Sheriffs Association and the Florida Police Chiefs Association and has received funding from the Florida legislature, the United States Congress, and the National Institute of Justice.

The Law Enforcement Data Sharing Consortium is leading the way in Intelligence Led Policing and has become a national model of success for law enforcement information sharing.