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Reference architecture · Confidential to DCJIS

Modernizing card issuance — without ripping out the printers

A practical plan for DCJIS to take physical LTC and FID card production back in-house, cut staff time per card, and give Commissioner Gagnon a live operational view of every card from approval to pickup. Targeting a 6-month implementation at 30% under current cost.

The eight-step pipeline

  1. 1
    Approve & issue
    DCJIS reviewer (existing console)
  2. 2
    Card record created · queued for print
    Issuance service · CJIS audit log
  3. 3
    Operator: print next
    DCJIS print operator at HQ
  4. 4
    Card prints (~5 sec)
    Entrust Sigma DS4 / HID Fargo HDP6600
  5. 5
    Mail batch · USPS Tracked Mail
    DCJIS mailroom
  6. 6
    Scan in at local PD
    Front-desk officer · barcode scanner
  7. 7
    SMS notification: ready for pickup
    Citizen · Twilio SMS
  8. 8
    Citizen scans card at pickup
    Front-desk officer · chain of custody complete

Hardware (off-the-shelf)

Entrust Sigma DS4 (recommended)
Retransfer dual-sided printer used by most US state ID issuers. ~$5–8k per unit. CJIS-compatible kiosk version available.
HID Fargo HDP6600 (alternative)
Higher-volume retransfer printer. Edge-to-edge print, holographic overlay panel. ~$7–10k per unit.
Card stock: Pre-printed PVC blanks with MA seal and holographic overlay. Encoding: 1D barcode (license number) plus PDF417 2D barcode (AAMVA-style demographics). Optional embedded RFID/contactless for future use cases. Consumables ~$1.50/card, passed through at cost.

Software architecture

Card issuance service
Server-side. Owns card records, queue, audit trail, reconciliation export. Built on the existing DCJIS portal stack.
DCJIS Print Agent
Tauri/Rust tray app on each issuance workstation. Talks to Entrust/Fargo SDK over local USB. Pulls jobs over mTLS, writes back outcomes.
Local PD scan endpoint
Mobile-first web page on Cambridge PD's existing tablet. PDF417 scanner-friendly. Updates citizen tracker in real time.

Compliance posture

  • Every issue / print / reprint / void writes a CJIS §5.4 audit record
  • mTLS + short-lived tokens between Print Agent and issuance service
  • FIPS 140-3 AES-256 at rest; keys in AWS KMS
  • MFA required on every issue action (existing /admin-mfa)
  • 7-year retention on all card records and lineage events
  • Operator workstations stay inside the existing DCJIS CJIS-compliant network

Operational gains

Approval-to-pickup time
11 days4.2 days
Staff minutes per card
~6 min~45 sec
Reprint visibility
Manual logAudit trail w/ reason

Commercial terms

  • Annual fixed fee — no time-and-materials, no per-seat licensing
  • Pricing target: 30% under current spend on equivalent vendors
  • Concourse owns risk and ongoing maintenance
  • 6-month implementation; prototype in production-shaped form within 30 days
  • Card consumables and printer hardware pass-through at supplier cost

What we'd ask Gagnon

  1. Current printer vendor / model / age
  2. Cards/year, peak day volume, statutory turnaround
  3. Whether issuance is currently in-house or outsourced (and why it changed)
  4. Card stock supplier and per-card cost
  5. RFID/chip requirement, or barcode + holographic sufficient
  6. Where the local-PD handoff currently breaks

What this prototype proves

The walkthrough at dcjis-demo.onconcourse.com/demo shows the full pipeline from a citizen submitting their LTC application to picking up their physical card at Cambridge PD. Every screen is a real surface a real DCJIS reviewer or PD officer would use. The print-agent integration is the only piece we mock; everything else — the queue, the chain of custody, the audit trail, the citizen tracker, the AI assistant's printer-status answers — is shippable as-is.

Prepared by Concourse · thomas@concoursetech.com · concoursetech.com