Executive Summary
Policing is in the early stages of developing a comprehensive response to the digitisation required to deliver effective services to all communities in the digital age. The 2016 assessment from the Office for National Statistics sounds a warning bell for all when it indicates that fraud and computer misuse is now approximately half of known recorded crime[1]. This can reasonably expected to both grow and diversify across the digital spectrum that societies now exist with increasing impact on communities.
The World Economic Forum has highlighted the next phase of digital change; this is colloquially known as the ‘fourth industrial revolution’; where significantly faster mobile networks support the propagation of the ‘Internet of things’ (IOT) into smart vehicles, homes, buildings, cities[2] and even people. This will be at scale and include medical nano-technology. Policing and partners will need to prepare for a future where cyber, biological and physical systems are connected.
Digital Capability development must therefore become a core function of how policing is delivered nationally and improved consistently, across post codes and artificial geographical boundaries. This national digitalisation will require both local and core funding assisted by central coordination presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for PCC led localism.
This is a transformational challenge where new leadership skills, technical literacies and competencies need to be brought into a flexible, community led workforce. The essential ethical underpinning of new approaches has been established, as have the collaborative arrangements for effective research and development. The regulation of various digital policing functions is a complicated array of interlocking activities and collaboration which will benefit from rrationalisation.
The digital policing ambition is underpinned and reinforced by the much-guarded principles set by Sir Robert Peel of acting with public consent, embracing the hallmarks of acting with prevention, necessity and proportionality. These are early days and green shoots of progress and grains of excellence are beginning to show. Continuing change is certain and the requirement for better digital policing to respond to victims will need to develop accordingly, this represents a huge challenge with the existing resource envelope.
This submission chronologically follows the public and victim journey from digital contact, to digital investigations and intelligence and finishing with digital criminal justice in the courts.
Introduction
The Digital Policing Portfolio was established in 2016. The ethos is to put the public at the heart of everything we do. Digital transformation has three public focused Programmes:
The Digital Policing Portfolio provides a new set of arrangements to promote and coordinate digital transformation of the police service for the benefit of the public and victims of crime. Whilst funding has been secured in the short term, sustainable funding arrangements should be core if the full benefits of digital police transformation are to be realised.
The support and engagement of Chief Constables, Police and Crime Commissioners and governmental stakeholders, including many technically orientated Programmes such as Communications Capability Development (CCD), National Cyber Security and Criminal Justice Reform, remain essential to delivering effective digital transformation of policing.
The ability of law enforcement to prevent and detect on-line crime during the early stages of the internet was arguably less critical. However, over recent years the nature of crime and the impact on people have intensified. Crime is increasingly technical, complex and diverse. Some forms of cyber-crime occur at speeds and scale which are simply industrial. The proliferation of mobile internet, in the last five years has generated new technical challenges for those responsible for safeguarding victims and investigating crime. It is therefore essential, that we lay the foundation of being accessible to everyone; effective digital public contact enabling the public to get quick and easy access to the services they need.
Programme One - Digital Public Contact
This programme seeks to bring contact with the police into the 21st century and utilise advancements in digital communication, specifically around social media, the internet and electronic commerce to promote and deliver new online services, online reporting and paperless transactions. It aims to provide a single, online 'home' for the public and the police, similar to GOV.UK. The merits of the available platforms such as Metropolitan Police, Police.UK and West Midlands Police are still being considered. Thames Valley and Hampshire police websites have already been developed and will be ready for beta testing imminently.
The Police Service understands that it needs to transform the way in which it engages with the public in order to:
Improve citizen experience and reduce demand on more traditional channels
Provide multiple and easier access to police services
Make it more convenient for the public to engage with policing at a time and in a way, that suits them.
Be more transparent and open with the victims of crime by keeping them updated in real-time in a medium that suits them.
Provide a singular standardised world class portal that is the face of policing for everyone everywhere.
Make it so that, where it is appropriate, non-emergency contact can also be done digitally and without the use of manual intervention.
Transform the way in which police officers approach digital public contact
The Digital Public Contact Programme aims to provide appropriate digital channels that enable public choice for reporting and tracking online, therefore allowing police to respond and support victims appropriately. A bespoke capability for business online reporting is under development.
The programme also seeks to provide a capability that enables the public to undertake financial transactions online; increasing police efficiency, enhancing the public experience and reducing contact costs. Further work on firearms licensing and administration of prosecution ticketing fines has been scheduled to commence in March 2017.
In order to provide a single source of relevant self-help information and advice to the public initial research on work and the user experience is being conducted. This is in parallel with the provision of social media as a contact channel.
The Digital Public Contact Programme will work collaboratively with both victim groups and private sector digital business experts in a phased approach to provide a platform to enable transformation. Once digital contact with the police has been established, the next area to address is to safeguard and support victims and investigate effectively.
Programme Two - Digital Investigations and Intelligence (DII)
There are two core themes within this programme. The first is to mainstream new digital capabilities into everyday policing. This will allow front line officers and staff to access and use new sources of digital information and evidence in their work. Supported by new ways of working and better, more efficient analysis on digital platforms that share data and knowledge will also reduce the costs of training. Piloting of mobile knowledge platforms is at a stage where some forces will be soon providing systems to staff ‘at the front line’. These aim to reduce training overheads, improve decision making and officer confidence when dealing with digital investigations. A national network of Digital Media Investigators (DMI) is growing to provide specialist advice and guidance to operational officers and staff.
The second core DII theme is specialist digital capabilities. These include communications data, equipment interference, interception, digital forensics, open source intelligence, analytics and data fusion, cyber-crime, technical operations and operational security. The DII Programme will be developing these to ensure that policing can deliver effective digital investigations in cases which merit specialist support.
The DII Programme interfaces with over six other major digital law enforcement Programmes for example, Communication Capability Development and the National Cyber Security Programme. There are a variety of dependencies within existing policing and Home Office Programmes such as Transforming Forensics.
The DII programme exists within a complex regulatory landscape and is supporting non-technical bodies such as the HMIC. The Office of Surveillance Commissioners and the Interception of Communication Commissioner’s Office is to form a new body under the Investigatory Powers Act. The Forensic Regulator, the Information Commissioner and the Surveillance Camera Commissioner all have an interest in the DII ‘ecosystem’. The interdependencies between these bodies could be more effectively managed through increased co-working and joint inspections.
Digital research and development needs to be structured and progressive if time and money are not to be wasted. The Centre for Digital Research and Industrial Collaboration is an embryonic body seeking to do this For DII and the entire Digital Policing portfolio. This is a collaboration is already pioneering research proposals. Future direction will reflect national priorities for developments in capabilities.
Importantly, DII and the wider Digital Policing Portfolio have access to the Independent Digital Ethics Panel for Policing (IDEPP). This is led by an independent chair who is supported by a policing chair. They are supported by a mixed range of academics, digital business representative, those from civil society groups and practitioners. Working to clear terms of reference and using a newly introduced collaborative digital platform, the panel will become increasingly central to providing feedback and guidance on the digital ethical issues faced by the service. The intention is not to do things or build capacity in a manner which does not represent policing by consent.
Digital skills and knowledge within policing are already being influenced by a number of key initiatives. The College of Policing is conducting a cyber skills pathway project which seeks to map service wide approaches to introducing and re-writing the skills requirements. The DII Programme has developed cyber special constables and volunteers already in a number of projects. DII is forming a national cadre of highly skilled individuals operating within national network to support policing. This is led by Special Constabulary Chief Officer from Hampshire.
With better use of digital intelligence and investigation this will lead to digitised criminal justice within the courts process.
Programme Three - Digital First (Criminal Justice)
There is wide acknowledgement that the CJS needs to improve for victims, witnesses and requires significant intervention to bring it into the digital age.
In recent years various reports have included aspects of digital evidence management, with consistent recommendations but varying levels of success in driving improvement. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary report ‘Stop the Drift 2’ [3]recommended that action should be taken to minimise the use of hard copies and downloaded still pictures. Sir Brian Leveson’s Review of Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings[4] proposed that ‘there is no shared picture of the infrastructure and capacity of different organisations to ensure that digital evidence (in whatever form) can be presented easily and without the delay or complications associated with present attempts to do so’.
Substantial investment is being made. Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) are investing nearly £1billion to modernise the courts and tribunal service. This includes around £270m to improve efficiency in the criminal justice system, in partnership with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), under the CJS Common Platform Programme (CPP).
There is an exponential growth in the volume of digital material seized, retained and managed, as either intelligence, information or evidence. Anticipated storage requirements within policing are enormous. Many decisions on storage arrangements are made reactively, rather than proactive planning for the future. There is also a requirement to ensure that evidence is accessible, readable and has long-term integrity, when current technology, systems or formats have been replaced or decommissioned.
Digital First aims to have all case file information and evidence, including multimedia, relevant to a criminal prosecution, digitally captured, stored and secured once in a chain of evidential integrity. These will be accessible on demand to all criminal justice partners, facilitating the effective use of video enabled justice capabilities demonstrating improved efficiency and effectiveness. This will be delivered through a clearly defined national strategy encompassing the end to end business process for capture, storage and sharing of case file information and evidence in a ‘video first’ environment.
Technology implementation led by business need enables true digitisation of processes and consequent realisation of a greater level of benefit. For example, data obtained from Hampshire Constabulary suggests that as much as £22 million per year could be saved, nationally, by eliminating the use of DVDs for sharing of digital evidence with the CJS.
Automation of processes wherever appropriate, will ensure compliance with relevant statutory requirements without expensive manual intervention. The workforce could need less training to manage case file information and evidence due to the intuitive nature of the tools adopted. Specialist skill development is focused on complex or high harm cases, or those which involve the most vulnerable victims and witnesses.
In 2016 Digital First carried out a landscape review focusing on policing’s readiness for criminal justice reform. The review gave an evidence base to show that forces’ maturity of thinking is heading in the right direction, however from a readiness perspective there is some way to go. Therefore, Digital First is proposing to deliver a Digital Evidence Transfer Service (DETS) for policing to enable sharing of this evidence between policing and the CJS. DETS aims to ensure that policing is able to provide access to digital evidence to all parties within the CJS at the point of need, contributing towards the delivery of efficient, effective justice for the public.
A Strategic Outline Business Case has been submitted to the Police Transformation Fund in order for the DETS concept to be delivered.
The Digital Case File (DCF) is designed to utilise digital technology to take information entered by the user (Police Officer) or police data systems to generate tailored and relevant case file information to be shared with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the wider CJS. This promotes the provision of better quality case file, which underpin an effective CJS, fewer delays, fewer adjournments and ultimately a better outcome for victims and witnesses. A cross agency pilot of the DCF was conducted in Cardiff during June and October 2016. A total of 765 DCF cases were created during the pilot. A detailed evaluation including analysis of a range of benefits, has demonstrated that the DCF approach has huge potential for improving case file quality. Further work to implement the recommendations from the evaluation will now be prioritised to progress towards national implementation.
For Digital First, across the criminal justice system, the current operating and authorising environments present a number of challenges to reform due to the scale and speed of change required. Furthermore, the digital process will at its most fundamental level impact the working day of every officer. There are varied starting positions in relation to strategic thinking, technology infrastructure and procurement arrangements. Digital principles have in the main been applied to old processes without the transformation of business process. Manual processes persist which impact on realisation of benefits.
Conclusion
There is much to gain from digital policing. The structured approach using three Programmes within an overarching portfolio is now established and delivering change in a way not seen before.
Strategically, in the Digital Policing Portfolio we are challenging conventional approaches, but substantial gaps in capabilities remain and there is much work to do. Policing must respond to the development of new and significant digital technologies and their impact across communities. This is a complicated environment in which to both deliver policing now and at the same time build new capabilities.
Digital policing has a long way to go and we recognise that success will be dependent upon coordination, funding and support. There is a national need for permissive investigative legislation to be as technology agnostic as possible and for it to be regularly reviewed, if police are to be effective.
Digital leadership remains a challenging area. Chiefs and senior colleagues who have built successful careers upon analogue understanding and behaviours of policing will need support to change their skills sets and organisational cultures. Success will be dependent upon those who facilitate innovation and the role of the PCC will be essential in ensuring that nationally developed capabilities are relevant to local policing needs.
The barriers to effective digital transformation include the state of existing technology, the capacity to invest during austerity, development of a compelling case for priority against other investment requirements and effective digital leadership. Many such transformations are greater culture, systems and behaviour changes than technological.
Any organisation which simply digitises existing and inefficient analogue ways of working will not be match fit for the demands for service from a digital public.
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[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingsept2016
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-lead-the-way-for-smart-cities
[3] 'Stop the Drift 2 – A Continuing Focus on 21st Century Criminal Justice (a joint review by HMIC and HMCPSI)’, June 2013.
[4] ‘Review of Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings by The Rt Hon Sir Brian Leveson President of the Queen’s Bench Division’, January 2015.