Law enforcement agencies often house vast amounts of data across multiple platforms that were never intended to interact with each other. To piece together a holistic picture of any case, incident, or individual, officers must sift through disparate data systems — records management, computer-aided dispatch, automated license plate recognition, and body-worn cameras, to name a few. They then face the manual task of de-duplicating records, conducting analyses, and drawing connections, often requiring assistance from tech experts.

This process eats up time and resources at already-strained police departments, underlying a widespread, research-backed problem: “Despite various data collection initiatives, the usability of police data remains significantly limited.”

Law enforcement institutions need an innovative solution to make their data more accessible, actionable, and securely shareable.

California’s public safety institutions are spearheading that innovation by investing in new technology that makes it easier, more efficient, and more effective for agencies to leverage their existing data platforms.