One of the major benefits that police forces have recognized in their roll out of Digital Evidence Management Systems (DEMS) has been the opportunity to improve how they engage with retailers and the wider business community when investigating crimes.
In late 2021 NICE announced that through an initiative driven in part by the UK’s National Business Crime Centre (a UK organization aimed at improving the partnership between the business community and police), NICE was working with police forces and retailers to help reduce crime and speed the delivery of justice through rapid information-sharing.
At the time Chris Wooten, Executive Vice President, NICE, pointed out that “The need for businesses and police forces to work together is greater than ever.”
He further said, “The volume of crime is rising and getting digital evidence into the hands of police investigators can be a time consuming, drawn out, manual process, requiring officers to travel to the business location to copy and collect the evidence. With lean budgets and forces short-staffed, time is limited.”
NICE set out to help police forces and businesses break through this logjam by using
NICE Investigate as a way to digitize the evidence sharing process, thereby removing time-consuming manual processes.
Boots, the largest pharmacy health and beauty chain in the UK with 2,336 stores, was among the first retailers to sign on to the program. Iona Blake, Security and Incident Manager, Boots, stated that “In addition to improving efficiency and saving time…” the program “changed the dynamic of our relationship with the police.”
CCTV Video Sharing
Instead of sharing CCTV through manual processes, Boots stores could now share CCTV video with eighteen participating police forces electronically.
It worked like this. Participating locations registered their cameras in NICE Investigate. NICE Investigate then stored the contact details for each participating business along with the geolocation of each CCTV camera. When a crime occurred, police investigators could simply pull up nearby camera locations on a map and instantly send off an electronic request for the relevant CCTV footage. Upon receiving the request, the store would then upload the video files through a secure portal in NICE Investigate, where the files were automatically virus-checked, converted to a playable format, and then deposited into the investigator’s electronic case folder.
The program continues to gain momentum, with over 5,500 UK businesses now having registered their CCTV cameras in NICE Investigate. Another 9,000 more have been invited to register and are pending registration.
Use Cases of Digital Transformation
Recently, NICE’s Reichard Perkins, the EMEA Regional Director for NICE Public Safety, joined Superintendent Patrick Holdaway of the City of London Police and the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) and Andrew Wilson from James Harvard (another early DEMS adopter and innovator), to talk about this successful digital transformation initiative. The resulting webinar,
Police, Business and Retail Engagement Benefits with DEMS was recorded and is available
for playback here.
In the webinar, Superintendent Holdaway explains how his involvement with DEMS began in 2019 (initially with Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police) and with Boots (on the retail side).
Lancashire Constabulary was one of the first police forces in the UK to recognize the potential of DEMS for transforming how forces engage with residents, businesses, local authorities, and other emergency services. In addition to working with the NBCC, Lancashire Constabulary has been proactively collaborating with UK retailers, supermarkets and businesses (including brands like Betfred, Poundland and Iceland) to get their CCTV cameras registered in NICE Investigate.
Today, Lancashire Constabulary officers can view the locations of 5,000 registered cameras in NICE Investigate on a map, and electronically request and receive CCTV footage.
Wilson, who was instrumental in the Lancashire DEMS deployment, explained that the force is now operating more efficiently, saving a significant amount of administration hours that would have otherwise been taken up by trips to collect evidence. This in turn has sped up the justice process as the Constabulary can now share evidence with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) much faster too.
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