Provision of a Digital Evidence Management System

Descriptions

The Police and Crime Commissioner for Cheshire (the "PCC") and the Chief Constable of Cheshire (CC)are working on a project to implement a reliable and robust Digital Evidence ManagementSystem (DEMS) to support the investigative process and best evidence to support prosecutions. The DEMS will provide capabilities and functionality currently unavailable to officers and investigators and represents an opportunity to modernise its end to end criminal justice process (from point of initial investigation through to positive justice outcome) and in doing so provide a range of business benefits. The DEMS should be capable of ingesting, processing and delivering playable digital media from multiple sources. The system should allow for simultaneous working with multiple users logging in, searching, accessing, media playback, editing and exporting of evidence in a highly reliable, auditable and timely manner. This functionality is required if the media has been grouped under one case with multiple users being able to access the case and work with the media simultaneously. It is important that PCC and CC are able to gather, review and action media quickly. The agreed service levels should be consistently maintained. The new system should have a proven and established ability to integrate with third party policing systems e.g. Records Management System, Command and Control, Digital Video Interview Recording and meet the Design Principles Digital Evidence Sharing Blueprint. The DEMs will provide a direct digital secure interface with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and other key recognised criminal justice practitioners for digital evidence sharing, significantly reducing the volume of manual activities and discs produced. This will lead to a reduction of risk to the Force (data breaches) and efficiency savings (reduced time spent burning and transporting discs).