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Visitation Help – Glossary of Terms

Visitation Help – Glossary of Terms

About Visitors

Visitor

An individual who enters or seeks to enter an HCSO facility.

 

Adult Visitor

A Visitor who is 18 years or older.

 

Minor Visitor

A Visitor who is younger than 18 years old.

 

Visitor Type

The category that defines a Visitor’s relationship to the facility and purpose for visiting.

Because the Visitor Type is based on the purpose of the Visit, Visitor Type is not fixed and can change for a single individual. For example, John Doe can come to service a vending machine at 10:30 a.m. (Visitor Type: Tradesperson), and come back to the same facility at 3:30 p.m. to visit a Resident (Visitor Type: Personal).

 

 

Authentication and Access

Login Credentials

The information used to authenticate a User during login is a combination of their personal information, consisting of:

  • Last Four Digits of Social Security Number
  • Date of Birth
  • True Last Name

Which Last Name is used to Sign In?

The Last Name a person uses primarily to identify themselves (aka True Last Name) can change over time due to:

  • Marriage / Divorce
  • Legal Name Changes

Because of the changing nature of Last Names it can be confusing to know which one to use when you have more than one or yours recently changed.

The Last Name used to sign in depends on your User Verification State and what you’ve provided us. Use the table below to determine which of your Last Names is required to sign in.

User Verification State Your True Last Name is…
Unverified The one you supplied as your True Last Name in your most recently submitted Verification Form (example: BOP Request form)
Verified or Pending Unverification The True Last Name in your most recently Verified Name Batch

Note: In rare cases, your account could have transitioned between these states since you last logged in. Therefore, we urge you to try the different possibilities presented.

 

Entry Requirement

An Entry Requirement is simply a requirement needed for entry, this may be a Form or Training. There are two types; what differentiates them is their scope:

1. Pre-Visit

  • due before a Visitor can qualify as a Visitor Type, such as how a BOP Request is needed for a Personal visitor (Visitor Type Qualification will be introduce during a later module)
  • can be used for multiple Visits, until it expires

2. Per-Visit

  • due before a Visitor can start a Visit, such as how a Request to Visit form is needed when a Personal visitor visits a Resident
  • only valid for one Visit

 

Valid Photo ID

See Photo ID Requirements for more details.

 

Visit Restrictions

Refers to restrictions placed on a Visitor in regards to where they can visit. Each Visit Restriction has the below attributes:

  • Access Type
    • Can Visit – indicate Facility or Person the Visitor can access
    • Can’t Visit – indicates Facility or Person the Visitor cannot access

NOTE: Visit Restrictions are grouped by this attribute

  • Description
    • describes what the Visit Restriction is applicable to
    • can be a Facility’s acronym or Person’s Name
  • Scope
    • defines the level to which the Visit Restriction applies
    • can be Facility-wide or Person-specific

NOTE: Pay close attention to Scope

A Visitor may have to an entire facility under Can’t Visit but have a single Resident within that same facility under Can Visit. This is common when a BOP Override is applied.

 

 

Forms and Verification

Form

Any document that a User or HCSO Staff submits in the Visitor Portal software.

 

Form Expiration

The date after which a Form is no longer considered valid.

 

Form Status

The current state of a Form in its lifecycle:

  • Pending – submitted but not yet evaluated by HCSO Staff
  • Approved – evaluated as acceptable without conditions
  • Approved with Restrictions – evaluated as acceptable with conditions Visit Restrictions
  • Denied – evaluation determined the form was valid but evaluated as unacceptable or declined
  • Canceled – evaluation determined the form was invalid
  • Expired – the form is inactive, such as when the form’s expiration date has been reached

 

Verification Form

A Verification Form is a Form that can verify a User’s identity as a set of specified Names during its evaluation (SSN and Date of Birth are also verified). Every other Form is a non-Verification Form, which can only be associated with an Active Name Batch.

 

User Verification State

Indicates whether a User’s identity has been confirmed through a Verification Form. A User can be:

  • Unverified – identity has never been verified; new account or only submitted Verification Forms that are Pending or Canceled
  • Verified – identity has been confirmed through evaluation of a Verification Form
  • Pending Unverification – temporary state when a Verified User is becoming Unverified, converts to Unverified once corresponding background process completes successfully

Restrictions per Verification State

Users have different restrictions based on their Verification State (as mentioned on the home page):

Note: You can see your Verification State on the Account Home page.

 

 

Background Check-related

BOP Request

A BOP (Background of Persons) check performed through CJIS (Criminal Justice Information System), is a paramount Pre-Visit Entry Requirement for most Visitor Types.

For convenience, the BOP Request form also contains related items, such as CORI and PREA sign-offs, which expire at the same duration.

 

Verification Criteria

A set of requirements used during evaluation of a BOP Request to verify the integrity of the provided information by:

  1. Confirming the info within the form is consistent with the data on the Photo ID provided
  2. Confirming the info within the form is all found within a single person’s CJIS Record

 

BOP Criteria

This refers to the criteria by which a person’s background is evaluated after all the Verification Criteria have been met.

 

BOP Override

In special cases, such as when a BOP Appeal is approved, an Override is applied to a BOP Request. BOP Overrides grant Visitors access that would otherwise be disallowed, in the form of updating the Visit Restrictions.

 

 

Names and Identity

Name

A Name consists of a first name, middle name (optional), last name, and suffix that legally identifies an individual.

 

Name Batch

When a Verification Form is evaluated, only the Names specified within it are evaluated. Given that and the fact that Names change over time, when a Verification Form is evaluated, it doesn’t verify all the Names that may be connected to a User (ones that might’ve have been evaluated before).

Therefore, we need to bundle the Names specified within each Verification Form. This “bundle” is called a Name Batch, which consists of:

 

How Users can add / update Active Names

The Names within each Name Batch cannot be changed after they’re created. If a User needs to make a change or include another Name, they’d need to submit a new Verification Form of the same Form Type to create a completely new Name Batch with the new / changed Name(s) (and any other current Active Name they want to use since they would become Inactive if not listed in the new Name Batch).

Users are notified of this within Verification Forms.

 

True Name

A True Name is the User’s Name as it’s registered with the US Department of State.

 

Alternative Name

An Alternative Name is any other Name a User may identify as, other than their True Name.

These are probably mostly previous True Names that were legally changed after life events, such as after a marriage, divorce, or social gender transition.

Since containing an Active Name is a requirement for a Valid Photo ID, a User may want to include some Alternative Name(s) so they may use an ID they have from before their name was changed.

 

Name Batch Status

The current state of a Name Batch, based on the Form Status of the Verification Form that created it.

How it all connects:

Point in Form Lifecycle Form Status Name Batch Status Name Batch Verification State
Before Evaluation Pending Pending Unverified
After Evaluation Approved, Approved with Restrictions, or Denied Active Verified
After Evaluation Canceled Rejected Unverified
After Form Expiration Reached Expired (previously Approved, Approved with Restrictions, or Denied) Inactive (Verified) Verified
After Form Expiration Reached Expired (previously Canceled) Inactive (Unverified) Unverified

 

Name Batch Verification State

Indicates whether a Name Batch has been verified; can be either:

 

Active Name(s) / Active Name Batch

A major reason for having Name Batches is because a Name is only a person’s “legal identifier” in society, which can change over time. This means one person can have multiple Names. Within legal documents, such as a State-Issued ID, a person is identified by such legal identifier(s).

Therefore, on Verification Forms we ask which legal identifier(s) / Name(s) a person currently uses to legally identify themselves. Only these Names are evaluated when the corresponding Verification Forms is evaluated as an Pre-Visit Entry Requirement. A satisfactory evaluation can expire, therefore a person can only enter a facility if they provide proof of ownership (through a Valid Photo ID) of a Name, which:

  1. Has been verified as identifying the User
  2. Passed the evaluation criteria (based on the resulting Form Status of the corresponding Verification Form)
  3. Was evaluated recently enough that we assume the User still would pass an evaluation (the corresponding Verification Form has not expired)

Names that meet the above criteria are referred to as Active Names, its Batch is referred to as an Active Name Batch.

After your account gets verified, you can keep track of your current Name Batch and its status by going to the Account Home page.