Much like every other aspect of our lives, law enforcement is now a digitally driven activity. Every crime has digital evidence, whether it’s a suspect’s cell phone, a witness’s cell phone video, camera footage from a doorbell, a fitness tracker or data from any number of IoT devices and sensors.
This wealth of digital data is both an asset and a challenge for law enforcement. Six out of ten professionals now rank digital evidence as more important than DNA evidence, according to Cellebrite’s 2024 Digital Trends Survey. However, the sheer volume of digital evidence – the average device holds 60,000+ messages, 32,000+ images, and 1,000+ videos – provides challenges for understaffed teams that often rely on manual processes to review these valuable assets.
Fortunately, law enforcement has the ability to fight technology with technology, implementing foundational architectures, including cloud, artificial intelligence, and edge solutions to better utilize digital evidence with current staffing.
Cloud
Law enforcement has been slow to adopt cloud technologies due to security concerns with the highly personal data they hold and the chain of custody that data requires. However, as cloud technology has become more commonplace in every aspect of our lives, it is also growing in use as part of modern public safety IT.
A survey from Zebra Technologies found that 96 percent of law enforcement agencies plan to implement cloud technology over the next five years. This shift to cloud as a de facto IT platform happened through careful education of the law enforcement market.
“Agencies see these reports about data breaches and can have hesitations about adopting cloud solutions, but we point out that compromises typically result from human error or misconfiguration within the larger IT tech stack rather than vulnerabilities within the cloud infrastructure,” said Trey Amick, Director of Technical Marketing & Forensic Consultants for Magnet Forensics.
“We’re getting a lot less ‘I can protect my data better than you’ pushback these days,” commented Larry Zorio, Chief Information Security Officer at Mark 43. “Law enforcement is now accepting the fact that cloud solutions are better positioned to protect data, based on the level of security that is built in and maintained 24/7/365 by trained cybersecurity professionals.”
The Richmond Police Department made the switch to a cloud-native records management system and now operational resources that were previously spent updating department servers can be allocated to other pressing IT department initiatives.
“The conversation we’re having today is that cloud is really about resilience,” said Matt Polega, President and Co-founder of Mark43. “Many law enforcement agencies have a server in the basement. If there’s a flood or the power grid goes down, operations can grind to a halt with dispatch centers relying on Post-Its to record and communicate emergency calls coming in.”
Resilience takes many forms when it comes to law enforcement IT:
- Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow – The Zebra Future of Field Operations Report found that managing major weather events is one of the top three operational challenges facing law enforcement agencies. Moving to cloud technology allows key IT systems to continue running even if law enforcement offices are offline. It also allows people to access information without being in the office, enabling response coordination to happen from anywhere.
- Take the Sting Out of Ransomware – Law enforcement is a huge target for ransomware. As with any cyber-attack, it’s not a question of if but a question of when an agency will face an attack. Back-ups are key to ransomware resiliency. Cloud solutions allow for continuity of operations, giving access to systems and data on a non-compromised platform while the ransomware investigation and response happens on the compromised system.
- Best-in-Class Security and Compliance – While law enforcement professionals are great at securing the streets, they generally do not have the expertise or staff to secure the cyber highways as effectively. Cloud solutions ensure that patches are pushed in a timely manner. Zorio with Mark43 pointed out that cloud-native solutions also ensure that updates are made to maintain compliance with requirements like Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).
Cloud also supports the sheer amount of digital evidence now held by law enforcement agencies. Body camera footage alone can require terabytes of data storage space, something that simply cannot be handled by onsite hardware. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has found cloud storage helps move cases along faster. Before using the cloud, if an officer completed an 84GB examination, they had to drive two hours, wait for it to copy over to the network, and then drive back. Now, using cloud solutions, collaboration between the lab and investigators is simplified with the ability to just send out a link providing access to all needed information.
Finally, cloud technology helps with one of the key challenges with digital evidence–chain of custody. Cellebrite pointed out that today many law enforcement agencies still rely on USB drives to share digital evidence. While these devices are encrypted and transfers are recorded, it’s a very manual process, requiring in-person contact. However, sharing evidence via cloud technology allows for an automated trail of who accessed what and when, hardening the trust in the evidence.
Artificial Intelligence
Perhaps a step behind cloud in terms of being a trusted technology, AI is nonetheless being adopted across law enforcement as a way to meet the growth in digital evidence. AI is rightly being viewed as a tool that requires human oversight.
“AI should sit between the large volumes of disparate data sets available and the decision-maker,” said Tomi Fadipe, Vertical Strategy Lead, Regulated Industries Global Strategy – Public Safety & Utilities with Zebra Technology.
The value of AI is its ability to quickly process large amounts of data and surface insights for investigators to view. AI applications, such as facial recognition and word recognition, pull the proverbial needle out of the haystack for investigators. “You may have a suspect in custody that has a warrant for something two towns over,” commented Polega of Mark43. “That information may not get shared or accessed as much as you think. Applying AI, these connections and insights can be surfaced at the time of need.”
AI also makes connections in seconds that would take people days or weeks to do. This could include linking two seemingly unrelated people based on seeing them in photos together or referenced together in communications.
In a different form of connection-making, AI can help ensure that the right resources are deployed in response to incidents. Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) can quickly look at the equipment each vehicle has, specialized skills such as Spanish speakers to respond to a 911 call that was made in Spanish, and the traffic conditions to get the best-suited response team to a scene as fast as possible.
In one case, the Placentia Police Department centralized its records management and CAD into a single platform to give officers a single point of entry to do reporting. It also enabled better coordination utilizing all of the data the department had on hand. During active events, this data is then leveraged to ensure that first responders are safe and informed when dispatched. Mapping technology also helps to keep dispatchers, units, and management aware of where resources are being deployed in the city, in real time.
Edge Technology
Law Enforcement is largely a field-based activity. People, supplies, and evidence are constantly on the move. A combination of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), IoT, and mobile technologies are helping to better manage assets, secure chain of custody, and allow more work to get done in the field rather than behind a desk.
RFID
Tagging equipment with RFID tags allows for quicker location tracking and reconciliation of use. Equipment can be tagged and scanned before it is put in a vehicle. According to the team at Zebra, pre-shift checks move from a half hour or more to just a matter of minutes when a vehicle can be scanned to determine all of the necessary items are on board. Combining RFID data with AI makes it easy to see which vehicles have the equipment necessary to answer a specific call – a defibrillator for a suspected heart attack, a specific accessory for a weapon, or bolt cutters to gain access to a locked area.
For one public safety agency, RFID allowed the department to convert storage closets at each station into “smart rooms,” enabling 24/7 real-time inventory of supplies and assets. Previously, everything was counted manually, with pen and paper, and it took a tremendous amount of manpower and attention to inventory assets and even then, there was limited visibility into that inventory. With RFID solutions, hundreds of items can be read and made available in seconds. Before this real-time visibility, crews would often overload apparatuses or stations with too many supplies just to be sure they had enough. As a result, inventory managers would have inaccurate counts and often over order supplies, incurring extra costs from excess supplies and inventory carrying. In the first year, the organization saved on carrying costs because of more accurate counts and the ability to complete inventories more frequently.
IoT
Increasingly, common pieces of infrastructure are serving a dual purpose. Streetlights collect data about traffic and sensors on bridges monitor weather conditions. Data collected by these devices may have value to law enforcement, but the devices themselves are under the purview of the Department of Transportation or a utility company.
Enabling interagency sharing is a critical next step in making IoT data more actionable and meaningful. Zero trust is emerging as the architecture of choice to protect and share data with appropriate parties.
Mobile
“When you see an officer on the street on their phone, they are likely receiving mission critical information from a supervisor or colleague. More and more that is how they get their orders, call for back-up, or access information on a suspect or a building they are about to enter,” commented Polega of Mark43.
Similarly, Amick of Magnet Forensics noted, “digital forensics labs have had consistent challenges due to the increasing size and functionality of mobile devices and tablets they come across in evidence, but what about the possibilities of those devices for frontline officers in the field? There is a lot of work that can be offset with modern technology.”
Specialized mobile devices and applications are also making fieldwork more efficient and safer. E-citation machines are much quicker than writing a ticket by hand, helping to get officers off of the roadside and motorists on their way.
Applications can also triage devices to narrow the amount of evidence that has to be collected. Amick noted, “it used to be that an officer would take every phone, laptop, and hard drive from the scene of a crime. That’s no longer feasible, so now officers can use applications to scan and triage devices on-scene to narrow down the amount of evidence to collect.” Similarly, data from cell phones can now be collected onsite, removing the need for witnesses and victims to turn over their devices for days or weeks, adding to their anxiety over the crime.
Improving Time to Evidence
The power of digital evidence was apparent in a case under investigation by the Lake Jackson Police Department. The department was given a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children regarding a child who had claimed abuse by a relative. The department had to work through 40GB of child sexual abuse material images/videos. Being able to use technology to parse through this evidence not only saved time, but also preserved the mental health of officers who did not have to work their way manually through all of the disturbing images.
To take advantage of the power of digital evidence, law enforcement agencies need a way to access the information, get deleted information, and then be able to analyze it. Doing all of that requires a large arsenal of technology solutions that then needs managing.
Law enforcement agencies across the U.S. are implementing modern IT architectures, including cloud, AI, and edge computing to supplement the work of the men and women on their forces. As digital evidence continues to grow in size and importance to investigations, forward-thinking agencies are implementing technology to accelerate justice while keeping the welfare and well-being of officers top of mind.
Carahsoft and our law enforcement technology partners are committed to helping meet the challenges of public safety with innovative solutions. Contact our Law Enforcement team at Carahsoft to learn more.
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