CrimTrac opens green data centre

The Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O’Connor, opened the latest in clean, green and secure data storage technology at CrimTrac’s new home in Canberra today. CrimTrac develops information-sharing solutions for law enforcement and ensures Australia’s 50,000 police officers have ready access to the information they need to solve crimes.

“This hub provides important information for solving crimes including DNA, fingerprint records, the Australian National Child Offender Register and other databases,”  O’Connor said.

“It’s so important that the nation’s police have easy and reliable access to the information they need. Getting that data means solving cases quickly and stopping new offences from happening.

“With the work of CrimTrac, many thousands of Australians have been protected from crime or seen justice delivered swiftly,”  O’Connor said.

“Having secure and reliable data is a crucial part of delivering that justice and making our communities safer,” he said.

CrimTrac’s new hub within the Canberra Data Centre at Hume will reduce the agency’s carbon footprint, heighten its disaster recovery capability and guarantee continuity of information. The new hub’s power consumption will be halved, there will be significant water savings and higher density computing will mean half as much space will be needed.

CrimTrac has two separate computing facilities: a primary data centre and a secondary data centre. The hubs will back each other up, should one experience problems or require maintenance. This ensures that CrimTrac has continuous access to data.

CrimTrac’s data hubs are built to allow for future upgrades that may be needed to meet the growing requirements and responsibilities of Australian police services, law enforcement bodies and accredited agencies.

“The performance, security and reliability of the data centre means CrimTrac’s customers can have great confidence in its ability to consistently deliver the data that’s needed,” he said.

As well as being clean and green, the data storage facility is also very secure, meeting the highest protective security standards. To achieve and maintain certification, strict guidelines must be met and continually observed. ASIO will carry out an annual audit and random checks to ensure standards at the Canberra Data Centre are maintained.