Query Physical Descriptors

The following fields are mandatory for a non-unique identifier inquiry: ORI, age, sex, race, eye color, hair color, height and weight.

The approximate age of the individual may be one or two numeric characters representing the age in years. The age must fall within a range of 0 to 99. The age in the inquiry plus or minus 1 year will be searched. If the person inquired upon is 100 years old or older, the first numeric (1) should be dropped.

Sex, race, eye color, and hair color should be coded following the instructions set forth in the Code Manual. A search on each of these fields will retrieve any record with a corresponding code.

Approximate height in the inquiry plus or minus 3 inches will be searched.

Approximate weight in the inquiry plus or minus 10 pounds will be searched.

When a non-unique identifier inquiry is received, NCIC 2000 searches the Unidentified/Missing Person Files for possible matches, i.e., candidate records. The sex, race, eye, and hair color codes in the candidate records must be identical to the sex, race, eye, and hair color codes in the inquiry. However, age, height, and weight in the candidate records may vary from the age, height, and weight in the inquiry as indicated above.

A score is assigned to each candidate record. The score is computed based upon the variance between the inquiry age, height, and weight, and the corresponding data in the candidate records. The score is an abstract numerical representation of the relative similarity between the inquiry data and the data in the candidate records. The score is used by NCIC to select up to the 20 most likely candidate records for the response to the inquiring agency.

To determine if a hit (identification) has been made, the inquiring agency must review all of the identification data in the candidate records and contact the agency that entered the record to confirm a possible match.