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Making intelligence sharing a reality
ABM and Anite launch a hosted intelligence service for police forces across England and Wales...
In a move to aid police forces as they wait for the new national intelligence solution called IMPACT, criminal justice IT provider ABM announced the availability of an interim hosted intelligence service for England and Wales.
Available on a quarterly rental model, the hosted intelligence service is the same technology as the Scottish Intelligence Database, which was built by ABM and already achieves true cross border policing and intelligence sharing across Scotland.
Police forces can quickly and easily connect to the system, which is hosted by Anite Public Sector, the sixth largest provider of IT applications in the UK, at a secure data centre. By logging onto this web-enabled solution to record and access the latest intelligence, police forces across England and Wales will be able to adopt a unified approach towards policing by sharing intelligence across force boundaries.
The system is easy to use, highly secure and requires no upfront investment. It will provide officers across England and Wales with the front line tools they need to fight crime more effectively, without having to purchase any hardware or software.
Rick Naylor, President of the Police Superintendent’s Association comments: “The police service relies on intelligence and conducts intelligence-led proactive operations. Without the best intelligence they cannot achieve the best results. There is an overwhelming need for officers to be able to access intelligence from any part of the country and this system provides us with a significant step towards achieving this. With this system in place the public can be confident that police performance will continue to improve.”
“Police forces across England and Wales desperately need a unified intelligence system now,” explains John Shaw, ABM Worldwide Managing Director. “Many say they simply can’t wait for the new government solution to be in place. We have therefore decided to offer our system to the forces on a unique rental model. This will allow them to make use of a solution that is up and running now but not waste long-term investment prior to fulfilment of the government’s plans.”
ABM’s intelligence management solution, the technology used in Scotland, has been deployed individually to a number of police forces in England, but with this hosted service they will be able to achieve a new level of joined up policing across the UK.
Anite will provide the hardware and communications infrastructure and take responsibility for the management of the system, allowing police officers to focus on the delivery of crime objectives rather than spend time on IT issues. The system, which will be accessed through the Criminal Justice Exchange (CJX), will run continuously with 99.999% availability.
Currently, a vast amount of information is held in disparate databases within each force, but the new system will centralise all this intelligence data for the use of the entire country, giving access to information that was previously unavailable, reducing unnecessary duplication and improving the accuracy of the information. The enhanced searching capabilities of the ABM system will enable officers in England and Wales to quickly and easily identify links between pieces of information, bringing more criminals to justice, especially those operating across force borders.
Commenting on the success of this system in Scotland, Detective Superintendent and Project Manager for the Scottish Intelligence Database, Ian McCandlish, says: “Before the implementation of SID there was no IT mechanism for sharing information. Today, not only do police officers have access to 90% of the intelligence that is gathered in Scotland but over 70% of police officers actively submit and research intelligence and this figure is growing. All officers can see how their intelligence has helped fellow police officers fight crime more effectively.”
“This announcement marks a change in the way IT solutions are provided to police forces,” comments Lee Hendricks, Anite Public Sector’s MD of Enforcement and Security.
“The system will provide police forces with a cost-effective way to achieve IT excellence, giving them the tools they need to make the best use of operational data and more time to tackle crime on the front line. The prime objective of this hosted intelligence service is to reduce crime. Coupling ABM’s intelligence management solution with Anite’s secure service support provides the perfect combination to assist police officers in achieving this.”
