Today’s police face increasing amounts and types of digital evidence coming from a growing list of digital sources: body-worn video, dash cams, interview recording, as well as audio and video from victim and bystander mobile phones. The information collection process takes time and is often ineffective and costly.

Organising all digital information in a useful way for investigation and prosecution is time consuming and difficult. Extraordinary effort is sometimes required to identify the information needed for an investigation, and cybercrime adds new investigation and digital evidence management challenges. Manual tasks, disorganised data management practices and information sharing can lead to inconsistent adherence to policies and procedures. Evidential integrity, correct disclosure of evidence and having evidence available in the right place and time are global law enforcement challenges.

A Tidal Wave of Digital Evidence

Police agencies are collecting an increasing amount of information from digital sources. Even if they can collect and store all this data, tag and store this data, they are drowning in the sea of information collected and the many sources of digital evidence. Unless the information can be well managed and carefully shared, digital data becomes a hindrance rather than an enabler of investigation and prosecution. A scalable digital evidence platform is needed that can ingest all types of information.

Manage, Analyse and Securely Share Digital Evidence From Any Source

Today, very little technology is provided to help officers manage, analyse or use information once it has been collected. Hitachi Digital Evidence Management (HDEM) organises CCTV, body, car and witness video, as well as other digital evidence to help police and prosecutors more efficiently investigate and prosecute crime. It takes a data-agnostic approach to use all digital information that has been collected and stored.

HDEM is delivered as a service to remove the risk and burden of system implementation and management. It leverages advanced analytics features to identify specific points of evidence (facial recognition, license plates and so forth), redacts aspects of the evidence that are not pertinent to the case, and identifies and assembles all related evidence.

Optimise Digital Evidence Management: Maximise Law Enforcement

Shorten Case Preparation and Time To Solve Cases

Hitachi Digital Evidence Management provides faster access to the right evidence, leading to faster identification of suspects. Saving time in identifying the right digital evidence leads to an increased number of cases cleared.

Ensures safer communities and cities, and a more effective police force and criminal justice system.

Provide Scalable Support of All Data and Device Types

As a complete, end to end service, HDEM enables the collection and management of all digital evidence, no matter the source, file format or size. All digital evidence is stored in a single platform, including witness and victim evidence that is uploaded via an integrated public portal.

Consolidates all digital evidence in one place, eliminates data silos and eases evidence management.

Secure and Document Chain of Custody

HDEM securely manages digital evidence and documents when collected, by whom and other details that validate the evidence. To provide chain- of-custody documentation, HDEM records an audit trail regarding the collection, transportation, storage, sharing and general handling of electronic evidence.

Reduces chain-of-custody challenges with compliant handling of digital evidence.

Improve Evidence Analysis and Situational Awareness

HDEM allows investigators to see all digital evidence associated with a case geospatially, on a map. This view enables correlations with disparate evidence types: audio, video, gunshot sensors, license plate readers and social media posts. It improves situational awareness and evidence location analysis.

Enables new understanding of evidence and suspect locations.

Proves Information Management Compliance

Developed and co-created with Police Forces around the world, HDEM complies with the Management of Police Information (MOPI) and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance regulations. Confidently manage your evidence in a world of changing regulations.

Ensures privacy and compliance with government regulations.

Privacy Protection

HDEM includes automatic video redaction of innocent bystanders, street names, and license plates, ensuring the ability to share video or image evidence with the public while maintaining the privacy of the innocent.

Lets you maximise use of digital evidence while protecting the public with fast and effective privacy protection.

Hitachi Collaborates With Police for Effective Digital Evidence Management

A subscription service that Hitachi has co-created and designed with police, Hitachi Digital Evidence Management provides a scalable, self-service, digital evidence management platform. HDEM meets the growing number of digital evidence management challenges facing the criminal justice system.

Key Data Points

– Meets today’s growing digital evidence management challenges.
– Improves investigation and analysis with geospatial mapping of evidence.
– Supports any digital evidence data source and file type; is scalable to meet the most demanding cases, including cybercrimes.
– Includes public witness and victim evidence upload portal.
– Protects privacy and provides chain-of-custody and audit reporting.

Next Steps

Policing has dramatically changed over the last few years, stressing outdated evidence management technologies and processes. Hitachi Digital Evidence Management can quickly update any police force with the latest in data analytics, geospatial mapping, automatic redaction and compliance with a single scalable platform.

Visit the HDEM web page for more information.

See how digital evidence can be managed and effectively used to enable faster investigation and prosecution of crimes. Contact an Hitachi Digital Evidence Management expert at hdem@hitachivantara.com and take the next step in digital evidence management.