History

In 1969 the Legislature passed and the Governor signed into law a bill which created Statute Sections 165.83 and 165.84.  These Sections provided that the Division of Law Enforcement Services (DLES) in the Department of Justice establish a central repository of identification information and provided that all criminal justice agencies in the state cooperate and provide information to the repository.  The Attorney General and the Administrator of the Division created the Crime Information Bureau (CIB) to implement and maintain the Identification Information system provided for by the Statutes.

The Wisconsin Identification System was established July 1, 1971, and is designed to serve Wisconsin law enforcement and criminal justice agencies as a central repository for identification information and is compatible with the historic Identification Division activities of the FBI.  The Wisconsin system is designed to allow for the coordinated exchange of state and national information of interest throughout the United States and the identifying data in the CIB files has proven to be extremely vital to Wisconsin law enforcement and criminal justice operations.