Harrisburg – Pennsylvania State Police completed its upgrade of the computerized criminal history record information system ahead of schedule, Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller announced today.

“As a result, the Pennsylvania instant check system, known as PICS, was returned to service at 8 a.m. today,” Miller said.  “That means PICS is available to all users, including the gun dealers who access PICS to check on the backgrounds of prospective gun purchasers.”

A few gun dealers, however, complain they weren’t notified the system was back up as of early this morning.

PICS background checks became unavailable on Sunday, Sept. 2, at 6 p.m. so that state police could begin an upgrade of the system, which was created in 1981 and contains all criminal history records in the state. State police originally announced that they expected to complete the upgrade by 12 p.m. on Thursday, then changed that to late Wednesday.  The work was finished early Tuesday morning.

“I’m very pleased that state police personnel, working with our contractor, were able to complete this massive project ahead of schedule,” Col. Miller said.  “Governor Rendell told me that getting PICS back on line quickly was a priority.  Now that the job is done, it means we have less disruption for the various agencies, gun dealers and members of the general public who count on PICS for criminal background checks.

Rendell, and the state police, received wide criticism from gun dealers and many state lawmakers, for scheduling the upgrade close to the start of hunting system and overlapping part of a holiday weekend.