THE POLICE DATA CHALLENGE Copyright Policing Insight/Cognyte 2023 “All of which potentially leaves them wide open to compromise from criminals, evidentially is almost of zero value because it’s been gathered unlawfully using an unapproved piece of technology, and is probably straying into the realms of direct surveillance, requiring a direct surveillance authority. “In five years’ time we should be in a situation where every frontline officer and every investigator of both volume crime and serious crime has both the skills, knowledge and technical tooling to be able to conduct relatively straightforward digital investigations without having to go to a DFU or a DMI.” Collaboration and capability Providing some of that capability, and sharing the outcome of the analytics process, is part of the work already underway within the Tackling Organised Exploitation (TOEX) team, which is working to develop and provide a cloud-based suite of tools – similar to a policing app store – that can improve the technical capability of forces as well as the availability of technical advantage to operational officers. Early packages created include a translate app that can work with foreign language phone downloads (and at the time Policing Insight spoke to the team, had already translated 1.5 million lines of text), a transcription app, and an ANPR ‘find and profile’ tool; potential apps for the future include a dashboards tool, and a data bulk search app. The team has also developed the TOEX Data Platform, an operational model which combines local, regional and national data to support and enhance the focus on both high-harm victims and offenders, aid investigations, and support effective tactical interventions. In what is a first for UK policing, the platform uses predictive analytics to identify hidden harm, which is then assessed by officers and staff to decide on further actions. Currently the platform is used to create three TOEX ‘Force Profiles’ – for violence against women and girls (VAWG), missing persons, and the Violence and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR). These are developed using analytical tools to conflate the crime, intelligence and custody data held by nine forces (Norfolk, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Kent, West Mercia, and Warwickshire), with strategic and tactical actionable products then fed back into forces. And while TOEX is already proving invaluable to the forces it works with, the potential to Former West Midlands Police Superintendent Iain Donnelly “What’s needed is the capability for every investigator in a force to do the lion’s share of relatively straightforward digital evidence investigation, so that the DFUs and DMIs can just get on and deal with the really serious stuff.” Iain Donnelly Former project manager, National Data Analytics Solution