The mobile revolution has completely transformed the daily lives of citizens and the organisations who serve them. Law enforcement agencies are no different as they look to deliver secure and modern digital experiences at the frontline.
CWSI has extensive experience providing mobility and security services to many of the largest private and public sector organisations in the UK, Ireland and across Europe. Its partner Absolute is a global leader for firmware-embedded endpoint visibility and helps governments, corporations, agencies, educational institutions and more to stay resilient in the face of growing and ever-changing cyber threats. Together, they have first-hand experience of identifying, implementing and managing the necessary cyber security and mobility measures that need to be taken to secure a distributed workforce in an increasingly complex technology landscape. They work with a growing number of police forces, providing them with the tools, processes and expertise to modernise and secure their systems and ways of working in a mobile-first world.
Streamlined digital operations
The Irish police force (An Garda Siochana) overcame many challenges since implementing a fully approved multi-vendor cloud solution to better manage front-line devices and data. Prior to engaging with CWSI and its partner vendors, the Irish police force were heavily dependent on manual, paper-based systems. Officers needed to return to the station to process paperwork, which proved to be inefficient and time consuming. In fact, the average process duration could take several weeks from start to finish.
Having instant access to data, records and secured mobile devices allows police officers to respond and manage incidents at any location in a more effective and timely manner. While the advantages are obvious on the frontline, it also enhances and streamlines operations across the entire police department – and ultimately for the authorities and citizens they serve.
The Irish police force took the decision to transform its tools and processes, securely and at scale. This included updating technologies within police stations including 1,200 screens where officers can simply plug in their phones and access systems. Several thousand new mobile devices were shared with officers on the front line, which provided them with real-time access to systems, applications and data, transforming how they could carry out their duties. VPNs have been rolled out as well to ensure the highest levels of security.
Transforming road policing
Roads policing, for example, saw the immediate benefits of having this new investment in place. Prior to the new technologies being rolled-out, fixed charge notices took up to 60 days to process as police officers filled out paperwork, sent them back to the station and they were sent out in the post some time later. Now the Irish road police can process these remotely in less than 60 seconds as there’s no data entry required. The user experience for officers has improved dramatically, data quality is better, entry errors have been minimised and all data can be integrated and analysed to help improve services further. It has been a game changer for Irish policing. CWSI, alongside a number of leading technology partners, delivered this dedicated managed service providing the highest levels of mobility and security.
In the UK too, there has been much progress in terms of creating more digitally enhanced and connected police forces. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Policing Vision 2025 has set out a transformative agenda, helping the service to meet the challenges of modern policing, including the changing nature of crimes and how they are committed, as well as new and emerging threats. Additionally, the National Enablement Programme (NEP) was established to help the 43 individual police forces in England and Wales work more collaboratively together, sharing technology best practices and national standards in digital policing. This joined-up approach is transforming the way police forces in the UK work and communicate together, introducing advanced technologies, reducing costs, and allowing officers to serve their communities in better ways.
Enhancing workflows, decision-making and operational effectiveness
With a more digitally enhanced and collaborative police service in place, officers and supervisors are fully exploiting data and technology to simplify workflows, improve decision-making, strengthen operational effectiveness, spend less time doing menial tasks and ultimately better protecting the public. These advanced systems are also vital for creating, analysing and sharing digital evidence through the police and justice systems.
With cybercrime increasing exponentially too in terms of frequency, complexity and sophistication, having access to the most powerful tools is essential to track cybercriminals down and stop their activities.
Ultimately its about better managing risk and leveraging public cloud technologies in the right way. All factors need to be considered. For example, you can have the most powerful technologies in a police officer’s hand but if cellular coverage is poor – as is often the case in rural areas – then they may not be of any real assistance. That’s where experienced providers like CWSI become so invaluable, providing intelligent, secure and reliable solutions to optimise the user experience across the widest array of devices and geographical locations.
In the course of their duties police officers and emergency providers switch networks hundreds of times a day, dropping connections altogether as they enter areas of congested or weak coverage. That’s why the NEP has implemented NetMotion as one of its recommended technologies to police forces nationwide. As well as meeting security requirements around zero trust and secure access, the optimised connectivity it provides helps make networks more resilient. The powerful diagnostics and self-healing functionality enables frontline officers to focus on policing without having to worry about staying connected or reauthenticating services multiple times a day – meaning no more disconnects or interrupted sessions. This is vital when providing real-time frontline policing.
Forefront of digital policing
One of the UK’s largest and most rural counties in the UK is Cumbria, with over half a million residents and 40 million visitors each year. The sheer size of the region means that Cumbria Constabulary officers need to rely heavily on technology and cellular networks to ensure rapid incident response. For this reason, all mobile technology deployed to the officers must meet three important criteria: usability – tech must be easy to use without complicated logins; accessibility – anything a user can do at their desk should be available on any device from anywhere; and most importantly, connectivity – remote users must have seamless, secure, reliable access to the internet, internal resources, and each other.
Cumbria is at the forefront of digital policing in the UK, and has been implementing NEP’s recommended technical infrastructure for many years. These include digital evidence solutions, adoption of Microsoft 365 and Teams, device rollouts from NetMotion and Microsoft, as well as NetMotion’s modern remote access solution. The integrated systems provide many benefits with improved communication and collaboration via multiple channels. It also gives Cumbria police the ability to update logs in real-time, For example, offender photos are immediately added to any incident log, making the images available to all the deployed officers and tactical advisors. With this flexible and scalable solution now acting as a key part of Cumbria’s agile IT strategy, it is now able to implement new ideas and technologies that are making policing better for both frontline officers and IT teams.
Having the highest standards of security is imperative to organisations like the police and emergency services. As part of this, organisations need to leverage resilient zero trust solutions, giving them the ability to detect suspicious behaviour and protect the network without the downtime associated with shutting off every device linked to the suspicious activity. By relying on resilient zero trust, organisations can avoid disruption or denial-of-service to end-users without administrator intervention, speeding up processes while prioritising end-point security.
Partnering with established leaders
Crucially, it’s about balancing the needs of staff working in-house and remotely, prioritising and understanding data risk management, and ultimately creating a top-quality user experience for all parties. That’s why so many organisations turn to established leaders, such as CWSI, in the mobility and cybersecurity arena to fully leverage their expertise and experience, as they look to enhance and secure their growing mobile, cloud and digital infrastructures. CWSI works with Absolute technologies to secure and optimise network connections.
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