About
A partnership among counties.
The California Regional Identification Group (Cal-RIDG) is a partnership of California Identification System (Cal-ID) agencies that share a single Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS). Each county owns and controls its data, while the system, workload, and benefits are shared among partners.
The origin
It started with a price tag.
An ABIS is the core of any Cal-ID program: it is how an unknown subject becomes a known one. However, the system typically costs $1–3M+ to implement. For most of California's counties, that price has kept world-class identification permanently out of reach.
Cal-RIDG was formed to remove that barrier. A partnership among counties and regions sharing one system alleviates technical and financial obstacles by splitting costs many ways. The smallest department now works with the same technology that was once available only to the largest departments.
The benefits compound as the partnership grows. Each participating county contributes its arrest records to the shared system, and each gains every other partner's prints in return: a positive identification of an unknown subject becomes far more likely with each county that joins. Better data for everyone, and safer streets for the public and for the officers who work them.
The vendor landscape
The systems counties run today.
Cal-RIDG surveys California's counties on the three systems central to identification work: livescan, ABIS, and mobile identification. The map below draws on the partnership's August 2026 survey and shows each county's current vendor for the selected technology. It remains up to date as counties respond, and each new survey will refresh it. This is the reference the partnership wished it had on day one.
- DataWorks Plus
- IDEMIA
- NEC
- Thales
- IDEMIA + DataWorks Plus
- None reported
- Not yet surveyed
- IDEMIA
- NEC
- Thales
- Computer Deductions Inc. (CDI)
- IDEMIA + DataWorks Plus
- None reported
- Not yet surveyed
- DataWorks Plus
- NEC
- Thales
- Parsons
- Previously Thales
- None reported
- Not yet surveyed
Hover or tab through the map; every county answers with all three systems.
The name
Regional collaboration. Statewide impact.
Every county Cal-ID professional knows the Cal-ID program. The R in Cal-RIDG is what the partnership adds: regional collaboration through a shared system, with benefits that reach across the state. The name reflects what the group stands for: counties working with each other, not for any one of them. Every participating county is equally invested in the partnership's direction.
Participation is open to every interested California county, and to any law enforcement agency ready to add its prints to the shared system. If your county is considering its options, the conversation costs nothing.
The mission
What the partnership holds itself to.
The mission of the California Regional Identification Group is to enhance public and officer safety by promoting, providing, and implementing the most advanced biometric identification technologies available to the Cal-RIDG user community.
In practice, that means three standing promises:
- Counties own their data. The database is shared; the data is never surrendered.
- The system is evergreen. Always advancing, with participating counties shaping it around their needs as it develops.
- Partnership is à la carte. Take the shared ABIS, latent print examination, mobile ID, or any combination.
The partnership meets each county where it is: it brings the expertise to run the system and handles the advanced technical work of onboarding, from VPN setup to firewall configuration. No county is asked to arrive with expertise of its own.
The right time is before the next contract.
Many counties are years into agreements they cannot leave tomorrow. That is expected, and it is exactly why the conversation should start early. Learn what joining includes, and where the funding already stands.