# What is a Data Source?

A Data Source is a web page, file, database, or filing cabinet somewhere which contains records about a criminal legal system agency (law enforcement, courts, corrections). Often, they are published by the agency itself. Many more records are hidden behind records request processes.

Data Sources can be records describing an agency's activities, like **traffic stops** or **use of force policies**. They describe agencies in the criminal legal system like the `Pittsburgh Bureau of Police` or `Allegheny County Jail`.

### What kinds of Data Sources are best?

{% hint style="info" %}
Finding all the Data Sources for your hometown is a human-sized project that can make a real impact. [Start here](/activities/data-source-annotation.md).
{% endhint %}

If it's about a police, court, or jail system, we are probably interested in keeping it in our database. A guide to our [relevant record types can be found here](/about/data-dictionaries/record-types-taxonomy.md). This includes [FOIA'd documents](/activities/foia.md), web URLs, and independently collected or published records.


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