Cross-border intelligence and evidence management

New technology has been unveiled that overcomes the issue of sharing large digital files for instant online intelligence gathering between law enforcement agencies both nationally and internationally.

Even since 9/11, there have been question marks over the effectiveness of traditional intelligence and evidence management, confined largely to regional or national law enforcement services.

Indeed, the need for more effective global cooperation between law enforcement agencies was stressed only last month by Ronald Noble, Interpol Secretary General.

Speaking at the 17th Interpol Training Symposium in Canada, he said: “We in the law enforcement community are today constantly faced with security challenges that transcend national borders and jurisdictions. We have all witnessed crimes committed in one country, organised and planned in another country by a crime group based on a third country. The complexities of organised crime today compel us to re-adjust our traditional crime-fighting strategies and force us to look globally while responding locally. We have to think and act beyond national and international boundaries to be more effective – indeed, to be effective at all. We cannot afford to be isolated from what is happening in the other parts of the world.

“Today’s police officers need to be equipped and trained not only with the basic crime investigation skills but also with the right knowledge and technology that allow them to connect and share critical police information and best practices with their foreign counterparts. Simply stated, modern law enforcers need to have a strong understanding and appreciation of effective international police cooperation.”

Interpol recently established police training and development as its fourth core function – alongside secure global police communication services, operational data services and databases for police and operational police support services – to help enhance the capacity of member countries through the sharing of knowledge, skills and best practices in policing and the establishment of global standards for combating specific crimes.

Almost on cue, a British-based security and surveillance services company has unveiled new technology that provides a breakthrough in cross-border intelligence gathering and evidence management.

Among its benefits, it overcomes the issue of sharing large digital files, such as video, for instant online intelligence gathering between law enforcement agencies nationally and internationally for the first time.

An extension of its existing DEMON manager evidence management systems – currently in use at Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Northumbria, Humberside, Warwickshire, West Mercia and West Midlands police forces – Scyron’s DEMON enterprise system provides a breakthrough with the electronic sharing and management of information across borders using ‘metadata’ [data about other data] that minimises bandwidth and storage.

It has been created with a Microsoft framework and meets internationally-recognised evidence and intelligence management standards.

Following the success of Scyron’s DEMON manager workgroup (departmental intelligent evidence management system) in 2008, DEMON manager enterprise extends collaboration from within one law enforcement department to multiple departments for the first time – from volume crime through to dynamic intelligence gathering between international organisations.

Metadata is used to categorise and manage specific incidents, from video and CCTV to mobile phone footage. For example, the enterprise system would allow an Indian law enforcement agency to search for, and find, a video of a terrorism suspect logged with a law enforcement agency in London within seconds. Instead of searching the video, the officer searches the metadata which contains stills of images from the video together with text classifying its contents. On finding the information on the suspect, the full video can be transmitted. Alternatively, the of