The volume of digital evidence in investigations, including body-worn video, mobile phone footage and CCTV, is increasing dramatically, and with it demand for technology that can automate the currently time-consuming process of redacting sensitive details such as personally identifiable information and vehicle registration numbers.
Estimates suggest that better utilisation of automated audio-visual multi-media (AVMM) redaction technology in police forces across England and Wales would rapidly reduce the amount of time frontline officers are currently spending on manual redaction activities.
The current average is nine hours to redact around 60 minutes of visual media.
Through previous discovery, it is clear there is tooling available but that maturity varies, with a trade-off between speed and accuracy.
However, this work also showed that the use of technology can significantly support the challenges officers face throughout their individual redaction processes, improving productivity and efficiency as a result.
Understanding the current state of play
The Home Office asked the Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE) to carry out a comprehensive landscape review to establish the current state of play across police forces and the challenges they face when conducting the redaction process.
Following this, work was continued across a Police Engagement workstream and a Market Engagement workstream, exploring different areas of the end user process to better understand the bigger picture of how redaction is utilised within policing.
Through Police Engagement, 16 police forces were involved. Information was gathered via interviews with various operational teams, run throughs of current processes and capturing of end-to-end user journeys to understand in more detail the challenges faced.
Assessments of the time to redact files were carried out as well as an assessment of the current tooling being used and the significant limitations these have on the user workflow.
The second workstream focused on a market evaluation of the current technological capabilities, to understand how far these meet AVMM redaction requirements and needs, as well as balance technical capability with compliance and security standards.
ACE conducted this work in partnership with Blue Lights Commercial and were able to run demonstrations of six different commercial off the shelf tools with a varying maturity in the AVMM space. This included a review of speed and accuracy for each.
Significant efficiency savings identified
After consolidating the key findings from both workstreams, it was found that up to 60% efficiency savings could be achieved by using automated redaction tooling.
Additionally, more clarity and consistency on policy and the requirements for redaction on a given case would lead to the depth of efficiency savings that improve force ways of working.
Wider benefits would include quicker criminal justice outcomes and a positive impact on police officer and wider staff morale.
AVMM technology could be transformational for policing and implementing effective technology and efficient operational processes will be critical to realising this full potential.
