From
Beat to Boardroom - Protecting Sensitive Information in a Digital Age
All
police officers work with sensitive information: the identities of confidential
informants, witness and expert reports. A complex investigation can
easily result in hundreds of thousands of pages of case documents later
used by prosecutors to prepare for and argue criminal cases, says Stephen
Partridge, business development manager, Adobe Systems.
Before the widespread use of computers, insuring this information remained
secure was a monotonous and time-consuming task. Officers would have
to stand at a copy machine, make duplicates of sensitive documents and
then manually cross out confidential information, such as the names
of witnesses, with a permanent marker.
Added to this, we are now living in an age of excessive form filling,
which according to the recent Sir Ronnie Flanagan's interim report (September
2007) is creating a police force that will ‘over-record and under-deliver’
for fear of missing something out. Be it not filling in a certain section
of the form, not deleting a phone number of a witness, or as simple
as not picking the document up off the printer.
Should one of these documents go missing that identified a witness or
a police officer the results could, in the worse case, put life at risk
or jeopardise a court proceeding.
Making this information secure is vital. One way to tackle this is to
use computer software that has the ability and protect it through techniques
such as encryption, authentication and redaction, the permanent elimination
of content from a document.
And, it's not just about protecting information in standard text-based
forms. Case files typically include photos, drawings or spreadsheets.
The ability to convert these various files into a single Portable Document
File (PDF), quickly redact sensitive text and images, and add password-protection
before sharing it with others has transformed an onerous process.
The result? Officers can efficiently keep information safeguarded and
spend less time on administrative tasks such as copying, collating,
filing, and securing paperwork.
Less Paper, More Security
Excess bureaucracy also occurs when officers have to spend hours searching
through huge case files to ratify a certain piece of information. When
this case file is a single PDF it becomes searchable and indexed, enabling
officers to locate specific references within thousands of pages of
evidence in seconds.
Permission capabilities help restrict access to the files and could
even determine who would be able to print, save, copy or modify the
documents. This ability to secure and restrict access to information
is not only beneficial to officers working on case files but when these
are passed through to judiciary.
The Law Society of Scotland recognised the benefits of embracing technology
when looking for ways its members could work in a more streamlined and
effective manner. Case file management was one area they addressed by
standardising on the use of Portable Document Format (PDF) as its preferred
cross-platform standard for electronic documents.
The Society's decision was based on PDFs ability to control access and
limit case file distribution. Added to this, improved efficiency and
productivity by replacing case files that previously consisted of stacks
of paper to one searchable PDF.
A Better Way
There is a growing bank of evidence that electronic case management
really can work. Take the Court of Cremona in Italy. When they moved
from paper to digital documents it eliminated the need to copy, route
and manage millions of pages of case proceeding, improved secure sharing
across legal teams and saved more than 356,000 euros.
These benefits can easily be achieved within the police system and will
help towards Sir Ronnie's call for ‘cultural change’, required
to eradicate the burden of red tape that is stifling our police force.