Data interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in

Data interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in | Peregrine

Some vendors claim to be open and interoperable but actually restrict or charge extra for data access. Key identifiers and questions can help agencies weed out those vendors.
Truly interoperable vendors allow customers to export their data in bulk for use in other platforms.
Interoperability blockers have become particularly common in the video and license plate recognition camera markets.
Vendor lock-in can stunt agencies’ potential for technical innovation, including building their own AI models.

In law enforcement, every shiny new piece of technology comes with serious data deliberations: Who owns the data generated by that tech? How much control does the customer have over storing, managing, and integrating the data? And — the most critical question for agencies to ask before signing with a new tech provider — is the vendor selling a platform that improves the data experience, or is it selling customers access to their own data?

Those considerations all trace back to technology interoperability, which retired Los Angeles Police Department Chief Information Officer John McMahon has described as one of the biggest challenges in law enforcement.

“Our technology vendors want to be the end-all and be-all and monopolize the whole technology stack for every one of our organizations,” McMahon said.

However, even if those monopolization tactics worked, no one vendor would ever get all agencies on the same tech stack. And for that reason, McMahon declared, it’s time to “put pressure on these vendors to stop playing games with law enforcement.”

“We need them to be strategic partners,” McMahon said. “Not just with us. We need a partnership that allows technology to work with one another, regardless of what other agencies’ technology stacks may look like.”

Understanding vendor lock-in

“We import and feed all these systems our data, but then when we want to take it somewhere else or retain it longer, somehow it’s no longer our data. When did that happen? At some point, funds — public funds — were spent on buying these systems.” —Chief Ed Medrano (ret.), California Department of Justice Division of Law Enforcement

Every software solution is unique. Even among interoperable platforms, one solution may generate and store data in a model that’s incompatible with another solution, so moving data between the two would require more than a simple drag-and-drop. But that’s not necessarily vendor lock-in.

Rather, lock-in happens when a provider keeps customers from accessing and exporting their data in open, industry-standard, non-proprietary formats — and it’s a growing problem in public safety.

Day two of IACP featured a roundtable event, organized by the Future Policing Institute, where law enforcement leaders gathered to discuss vendor openness, data democratization, and the dangers of lock-in. Fulcrum Innovation LLC Managing Principal Christian Quinn moderated the event.

Quinn kicked off the conversation with an example of vendor lock-in that rang all too familiar to many around the table: A police department pilots a vendor’s camera system solution for six months. The vendor positions itself as open and interoperable, promising that if the agency ultimately forgoes a long-term contract, the vendor will return all of the agency’s data. After all, it is the agency’s data.

So, the trial period passes. The department decides against using the vendor long-term. And, as promised in the contract, the vendor returns the data — but it’s a mess.

No labels. No metadata. No links to calls for service. No officer names. Just six months of raw audio and camera footage, basically modeled, as Quinn put it, “like an iTunes list.” In this example, despite having the technical capabilities to practice true interoperability, the vendor’s business interests came first — at the expense of public safety.

“I understand vendors have to make money, and I understand establishing these ecosystems gives them competitive advantage,” Quinn said. “Make your revenue where you need to make it, but don’t put us in a bind.”

Ed Medrano, former chief of the California Department of Justice Division of Law Enforcement, echoed Quinn’s sentiment.

“We import and feed all these systems our data, but then when we want to take it somewhere else or retain it longer, somehow it’s no longer our data,” Medrano said. “When did that happen? At some point, funds — public funds — were spent on buying these systems.”

Long-term consequences of vendor lock-in

Contracting with a vendor that does not practice interoperability can have long-term impacts to an agency, hindering its ability to build a robust tech stack over time or develop agency-specific AI models.

Fragmented tech stacks

Public safety agencies rarely buy all of their tech solutions in one fell swoop. Rather, they purchase tools on an ad-hoc basis depending on grant conditions, budget line items, political will, and departmental priorities. As a result, their tech stacks are often made up of disparate point solutions from various software providers.

“We need to be able to put it all together like Legos if it’s two years down the road,” Quinn said.

However, when vendors hold their customers' data hostage in an attempt to lock in deals, agencies find themselves trying to build with both Legos and Mega Bloks — and they just aren’t compatible. Data sharing becomes limited or impossible between siloed software solutions, making agencies’ tech stacks less effective and their data less actionable.

Limited potential for agency-specific AI models

As AI-powered tech proliferates in law enforcement, it’s more important than ever for agencies to choose interoperable vendors so they can maximize the potential benefits of AI. Public safety institutions can only leverage AI effectively if they are able to access, manipulate, and move their data. Vendor lock-in puts agencies at risk of missing opportunities to develop their own AI models.

To train and deploy workflow-specific AI models for better operational efficiency, an agency must be able to download its data and leverage it — in bulk — in any third-party system. If a vendor restricts that ability, the agency loses out on potential time and resource savings from AI-powered solutions for years to come.

Choosing the right vendors

When it comes to selecting vendors that respect and protect agencies’ data ownership and access, New York Police Department Commanding Officer Michael Gulinello gave a simple piece of advice: Your vendors should be your partners.

“If your vendor is not your partner, they shouldn’t be your vendor, plain and simple,” Gulinello said. “If something breaks at three in the morning and I call the vendor, they’ve got to pick up the phone, because it could be a critical system that needs to be up.”

Knowing which vendors 'walk the walk'

As true partners, vendors should encourage democratized data access, meaning they should support customers’ right to bulk-move their data for manipulation in third-party platforms. In an interoperable business model, vendors aim to win in the market by selling users the best possible data interaction experience.

However, some vendors claim to be interoperable but don’t follow through in practice, ultimately limiting customers’ rights to their own data. These vendors may try to upsell their customers by offering expanded data access for an additional charge. This business model depends on stifling competition by restricting customers’ ability to leverage their own data outside of the vendor’s platform.

“If your vendor is not your partner, they shouldn’t be your vendor, plain and simple.” — Commanding Officer Michael Gulinello, New York Police Department

Take Quinn’s camera provider pilot example from earlier: The vendor technically allowed the customer access to their data, but by withholding the metadata, it released information that was practically unusable. In that scenario, the customer did not have complete access to its entire data set. That’s not interoperability.

Key requirements for interoperability

To demonstrate interoperable data practices, a vendor must:

Provide customers with real-time access to data replicated in any store
Offer an API that allows data to flow both in and out of the platform without serious limitations
Give customers complete access to their entire data set in the vendor’s platform
Not impose additional costs for full data access

If you’re unsure whether a current or prospective vendor follows interoperability best practices, asking the following questions can help you uncover the truth.

Does the vendor give customers full ownership of their data? An interoperable vendor would agree that all of the data generated and stored in its platform belongs to the customer, not the vendor. The vendor should also clearly outline which data or metadata, if any, is not considered the customer’s property.
If the vendor imposes data access restrictions, why, and which data is restricted? The vendor should be able to explain whether it’s restricting customers’ access for technical reasons or for business reasons.
Does the vendor let customers move and manipulate their data in bulk, in real time? The vendor should honor a customer's request to bulk-move its data from the vendor’s database for use in any third-party system.

Peregrine’s stance on interoperability

“We need to be focused on the mission as much as you are, and we need to be focused on furthering your mission.” —Matt Melton, Business Development and Partnerships, Peregrine

Every day, law enforcement and other public agencies make decisions that directly impact the health and safety of their communities. To approach such critical choices with confidence and integrity, these institutions need full ownership of and access to their data.

Limiting agencies’ data access, or charging extra for it, results in real consequences. Such restrictions can reduce the effectiveness of public institutions, jeopardize officer safety and community health, and erode trust between agencies and vendors.

To create a more efficient, effective, and collaborative data environment for organizations across the public and private sectors, Peregrine is committed to:

Supporting democratized data access for all of our customers, even if it imposes additional costs on our business
Integrating data from virtually any source at any scale
Providing customers with flexible, secure access to their data, even if it’s stored across siloed systems

Communities’ safety depends on how public agencies store, integrate, manage, share, and action their data. As a partner to the institutions we serve, Peregrine is responsible for working with both our customers and other companies in the data space to drive openness and interoperability.

Matt Melton, who heads business development and partnerships at Peregrine, closed the roundtable with a reminder.

“The private sector needs to come to the table with not just bottom-line profits on the brain,” Melton said. “We need to be focused on the mission as much as you are, and we need to be focused on furthering your mission.”

Reach out to learn more about how Peregrine can help you take full ownership of your data.

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