You are in:
Q&A with new CEO of i2
The BAPCO Journal met with the new CEO of i2, Robert Griffin, who was previously CEO of KCC, to talk to him about what COPLINK can offer the emergency services, the potential for the new company, and what they are hoping to do in the UK marketplace.
In July it was announced that Knowledge Computer Corporation (KCC) had merged with i2, a provider of investigation management software, to be able to offer its COPLINK system to a new range of law enforcement agencies and their analysts, and would be undertaking an increased focus on further innovations in these technologies too.
Lead generation quickly and efficiently
"By combing both i2 and KCC we are now able to offer a system for law enforcement personnel at both the first responder level and the analytical level with a system that can help generate potential leads for cases quickly and efficiently. Furthermore it means analysts have access to a far greater source of information they can use to preempt potential crimes before they happen and can see patterns and connections occurring in data being stored in the system. This offers a far more effective way of pro-actively stopping crime."
COPLINK works by taking information entered into the system and cross-referencing it with the database and offering a list of potential suspects, with degrees of probability, to help find individuals who have been stopped before. Not only does this help speed up the process of lead-generation, it also means data held on other databases can be searched too, so that information which may not appear directly relevant can be indexed against search criteria entered.
"By combining databases from across police records potentially vital information is not overlooked," says Griffin. He also notes the 80/20 rule of policing: that 80% of crimes are generally committed by the same 20% of people and as such it is vital to cross-reference databases and make sure key information is not missed. "COPLINK doesn’t help solve crimes but it allows analysts to accelerate the processes of lead-generation by looking at multiple databases and offering potential suspects."
360 databases to cover
This is an important consideration in modern policing: "The COPLINK technology is in use by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and when we spoke with them the Chief of Police informed us they had 360 different databases – obviously the potential to overlook a vital piece of information that could help point an officer in the right direction was huge. With our system though this risk is removed as anything of note can be flagged up after the first search information is entered."
The system is in use across America, from Washington – where it first made waves helping to identify the two suspects of the Washington Sniper case in 2002 – to Los Angeles, covering 3,000 jurisdictions. The company is now looking at the UK market where solutions are already well established with police forces across the regions. South Wales Police for example has installed i2’s iBase technology for its analysts to help speed up searching and analytical processes, especially during the critical ‘Golden Hour’.
Further developments
Since the merger of i2 and KCC the new company is keen to expand further and continue to develop what the technology can do. As such there are plans to integrate GIS technologies to the traditional i2 product set system so geographic information can be referenced to help analysts build up clearer patterns of when and where crime is taking place. Not only this but facial recognition technology has also been added to the program so images of suspects can be searched and cross-referenced with any previous images taken, where false names or details may have been given. Furthermore a new capability in Analyst Notebook will be released this quarter. This will be called COPLINK Analysis Search and will allow a user to reach into the COPLINK database and drag information into Analyst Notebook - this is the first step in integrating the two product sets.
‘With the merger of i2 and KCC we can now offer law enforcement agencies across the world technology that can really help make a difference,’ says Griffin. ‘Not only does it help them get criminals off the streets, but it lets them do so quickly and efficiently.’
South Wales Police
South Wales Police has been using the iBase system from i2 for several months now and the benefits of doing so for both analysts and officers have been seen already as Allyson Brown, principal analyst for SWP, explains:
"The Force uses Niche RMS as its crime and intelligence system and it does the job perfectly well. However, for analysing data and seeing patterns or generating leads for officers, the information was not easy to navigate for more complex queries and it could be very time consuming to come up with anything. Since late last year though, after a drive by our Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Collette Paul to implement this technology, and in collaboration with a project by the Organised Crime Groups (OCG) to map organised crime, we have been using the iBase technology. This has provided us with a far more effective and efficient way to analyse data by allowing us to drill deeper and present the information in various forms to help officers with efficient policing on the streets.
“Another massive benefit the iBase system offers is that we can input other data sets. We can then use these data sets to help build a more complete intelligence picture to help the investigation of crime and disorder. For instance, we are currently inputting data gathered by Cardiff University on the ‘fear of crime’ and this will be on the system very soon, while we also have permission to upload information from the prison service on the location and information of all those on their records. We also have ANPR information to come by the end of the year so that by Easter of next year we will have a huge range of data sets that we can use to analyse and interpret data and do so with a system that is far more functional and intuitive than the ones we were using previously.
“It's already proved very popular among the analysts. We have given demonstrations of the software to senior officers who are very impressed by what it can do and see the benefits straight away.”
