On October 31, 2007, Ambassador McNamara, Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment, established the Common Terrorism Information Sharing Standards (CTISS) program. The CTISS program allows for business process-driven, performance-based "common standards" for preparing terrorism information for maximum distribution and access, to enable the acquisition, access, retention, production, use, management, and sharing of terrorism information within the ISE. Two categories of common standards are formally identified under CTISS:
- Functional Standards - Functional standards set forth rules, conditions, guidelines, and characteristics of data and mission products supporting ISE business process areas.
- Technical Standards - Technical standards document specific technical methodologies and practices to design and implement information sharing capability into ISE systems.
- ISE-SAR Functional Standard, Version 1.0 (ISE-FS-200) Cover Document
- Technical Artifacts for ISE-FS-200 (ISE-SAR). This link will route you to the Common Terrorism Information sharing Standards Registry where you can locate the technical artifacts for ISE-FS-200.
- Program Manager's Memorandum to Agencies Regarding Release of ISE-SAR Functional Standard
- ISE-SAR Functional Standard Fact Sheet
- ISE Administrative Memoranda #300 (CTISS Program)
- Common Terrorism Information Sharing Standards Program Manual
Consistent with Guideline 1 of the President's Memorandum of December 2005, Guidelines and Requirements in Support of the Information Sharing Environment, and the Implementing the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (9/11 Commission Act), the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are responsible for making Common Terrorism Information Sharing Standards (CTISS) available for use by State, local, and tribal governments and the private sector, and requiring its use through grant guidance and other mechanisms, as appropriate.
First Functional Standard Issues - Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR)
On January 25, 2008, the Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment, issued the first version of the ISE - Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Functional Standard (ISE-FS-200). The ISE-SAR Functional Standard will support the sharing between Federal, State, local and tribal partners, of suspicious activity or incident information with a potential terrorism nexus, in a manner that protects the privacy and legal rights of Americans.
The effective sharing of ISE-SAR will enable the discovery and analysis of potential terrorism-related patterns or trends on a regional and national basis beyond what would be recognized within a single organization, jurisdiction, State, or territory.
- This functional standard supports implementation of the President's National Strategy for Information Sharing which identifies Suspicious Activity Reporting as one of the key information exchanges between the Federal Government and our State and local partners.
- Standardized and consistent sharing of suspicious activity information with State and major urban area fusion centers is integral to assessing, deterring, preventing, or prosecuting those planning terrorist activities.
- The ISE-SAR Functional Standard can be used by non-Federal ISE participants, such as State and major urban area fusion centers, and State, local, and tribal law enforcement and homeland security organizations.
Accessing the CTISR registry requires the user to register for an account. This ensures the user is notified of updates and revisions to the functional standards as they become available. Once logged into the registry, click "Search Registry" and enter "CTISS" - links to all matching standards, including the ISE-FS-200 Version 1 Technical Artifacts, will be displayed.
CTISS Help Desk
- Phone Support: 9 AM-8 PM (EST): 1-877-333-5111 or 703-726-1919
- Email Support: 9 AM-8 PM (EST): NISShelp@ijis.org
- Web: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: http://it.ojp.gov/NISS/helpdesk/
Accessing and Using CTISS Publications
The CTISS provides major components to the ISE Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF) and, more specifically, in the Data, Application and Service, and Technical Partitions of the EAF. The CTISS information and artifacts can be found on the Common Terrorism Information sharing Standards Registry (CTISR), which will interface with standards registries such as the DoD Metadata Registry (MDR) and the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Registry.
The CTISR supports search and discovery of standards information to include ISE functional standard (FS) and technical standard issuances, and links to data schema, schema subset generation tools, Universal Core data elements, and other supporting artifacts as well as a search of the Federated Registries.