Digital Evidence Management System for Law Enforcement

A digital evidence management system is crucial for expedited case investigations. As a matter of fact, 90% of all crimes had some sort of digital evidence involved.

This encompasses a vast array of data, from emails, photos, and videos to documents, social media posts, and even GPS information. This underscores the immense volume of digital evidence law enforcement professionals now deal with.

Now, to deal with this ongoing challenge, law enforcement agencies have resorted to adopting different systems and software to handle this vast amount of digital evidence. A complete purpose-built software for overcoming this challenge is a digital evidence management system.

Experience the advanced digital evidence management software for law enforcement with a 7-day free trial.

In this blog, we’ll talk briefly about what a digital evidence management system is and what features law enforcement agencies should look for before investing in it.

What is a Digital Evidence Management System?

A digital evidence management system is a comprehensive solution for handling, storing, securing, and sharing digital evidence with multiple stakeholders. In recent times, due to the surge of crimes and digital evidence being found in cases, technology such as this has sprung up.

Must-Have Features in a Digital Evidence Management System

With new vendors emerging in the digital evidence management market, it can be hard for law enforcement officers to determine whom to rely on for managing their digital evidence.

Don't worry. We have curated a list of select features integral to a digital evidence management system:

Digital Evidence Ingestion

Gathering evidence from different sources – videos, images, documents, emails – and then ensuring it is all secure and remains untouched by unauthorized hands can seem a daunting task.

An advanced digital evidence management system offers law enforcement professionals the ability to ingest different forms of digital evidence, be it from CCTV cameras, body-worn cameras, financial documents, 911 calls, or any other form, on a centralized digital evidence repository.

Chain of Custody

Chain of custody is a vital part of evidence reporting. Courts require a detailed chain of custody report for digital evidence to be admissible at the time of a hearing.

Police evidence management software allows law enforcement agencies to make digital evidence admissible in court by creating a chain of custody report that keeps a log of every activity that happened with the digital evidence.

Metadata and Tagging

Have you ever felt frustrated while being unable to find your favorite book in a library? That is equivalent to trying to locate digital evidence without metadata. Metadata and tags can help law enforcement officers easily locate specific digital evidence in an instant.

Digital evidence management software automatically creates metadata and tags to reduce evidence search costs for law enforcement professionals. Officers can also add their own metadata and tags for easy searchability of digital evidence.

Evidence Sharing

Investigations aren't solo gigs. Agencies need to collaborate with external agencies within and across the national borders, court systems, attorneys, and prosecution to build cases. Sharing evidence while ensuring its integrity is crucial for law enforcement.

A digital evidence management system offers law enforcement agencies the ability to share digital evidence with a variety of stakeholders securely with a host of data-sharing features.

AI-Powered Search Capabilities

Time is a scarce commodity. Law enforcement officers want to get to the point fast. Imagine yourself looking for specific digital evidence without knowing the filename or case ID. Sounds like a nightmare, right? With AI-powered search, police officers can navigate a huge amount of digital evidence.

A digital evidence management system saves the time and effort of law enforcement officers by allowing them to locate digital evidence with faceted evidence search quickly.

Security and Compliance

This goes without saying, but we’re still going to talk about it anyway. Security is non-negotiable when handling digital evidence. Compliance with laws such as HIPAA and GDPR is critical as well. Otherwise, be ready to face the music of different regulatory bodies in the form of hefty fines.

Police evidence management software is strictly compliant with standards like CJIS, FIPS, CCPA, GDPR, and HIPAA, among others. Law enforcement officers need not worry about paying millions of dollars in compliance fees anymore.

Integration

Agencies employ a multitude of specialized systems to aid their investigations. However, this diversified landscape can turn into a logistical nightmare if these systems don't seamlessly work together.

Picture this scenario: You're unable to transfer crucial documents to your digital evidence management system for further analysis. It's undeniably frustrating, right?

An advanced digital evidence management system allows seamless integration with the agency’s existing IT systems to ensure smooth interoperability.

VIDIZMO Digital Evidence Management System for Law Enforcement Agencies

VIDIZMO Digital Evidence Management System (VIDIZMO DEMS) empowers law enforcement professionals to effectively manage digital evidence by offering the following capabilities:

• Ingest all types of digital evidence – video, audio, image, and document.
• Search for specific digital evidence by metadata, tags, spoken content, objects appearing in the video, and more.
• Store and manage digital evidence on a secure, centralized, CJIS-compliant digital evidence management system.
• Secure digital evidence with a host of security features – single-sign-on (SSO) support, multifactor authentication (MFA), role-based access control (RBAC), IP and geo-restrictions, real-time activity alerts, and more.
• Automate the transcription of digital evidence with AI-powered transcription and translation of digital evidence in 40+ languages.
• Automatically create an evidence chain of custody report to ensure admissibility in court.
• Verify whether digital evidence has been tampered with using tamper detection feature.
• Securely share digital evidence with others for a specific time with URL tokenization.
• Integrate with the agency’s existing systems using a robust REST API.

Eager to explore more features of VIDIZMO DEMS? Check out other capabilities here.

Conclusion

Investing in the right digital evidence management system is crucial for law enforcement agencies. Otherwise, be prepared to deal with sunk costs that will never be recovered.

By knowing what features to look for in a digital evidence management system, law enforcement professionals can ensure they are making the right investment in evidence management software.

Don’t rush your investment. Sign up for a 7-day free trial of the AI-powered digital evidence management system recognized by IDC. No questions asked.