Learn How Investigative Analytics Holds the Key to Digital Policing’s Future
According to a recent industry benchmark report, 90% of cases today involve a smartphone as the main source of evidence. In fact, digital evidence has become so important, some say it’s had the greatest impact on criminal investigations since the introduction of DNA evidence
While we all understand the importance of Digital Intelligence— data that’s accessed and collected from digital sources and data types such as smartphones, computers, and the Cloud—as digital technologies grow, agencies need better processes to access, manage, and leverage data to run their operations more efficiently.
The Challenge of Data Overload
As digital technologies grow, so do the copious amounts of digital data generated by these devices. Mobile phones today can hold 256GBs or more. A single SIM card can house as much data as was typically found on the most advanced hard drives just a decade ago. And while cases of the past might’ve involved a single phone or computer, todays’ cases typically involve dozens of devices and data sources harboring tens of terabytes of information.
The result has been data overload which is drowning crime lab examiners and analysts…and leaving investigators with the seemingly impossible task of sifting through mountains of data to render actionable intelligence for their cases.
The Power of Pathfinder
Cellebrite Pathfinder can seamlessly expedite the investigation process, automate data ingestion and use advanced AI to analyze, and visualize data from mobile, cloud, computer, CDR, and video sources. Additionally, it also identifies patterns, reveals connections, and uncovers leads with precise speed and accuracy.
Key Features
To balance time-to-evidence against the challenges of data overload, investigators need Cellebrite Pathfinder to
Using Investigative Analytics to Reduce Violent Crime
Kevin Levy, Commander of the Mobile Police Department’s Cyber Division, runs the Gulf Coast Technology (GCTC)—a crime- fighting unit comprised of 27 different federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, and several military entities. Commander Levy and the 40 people that are participating in the GCTC program are strong believers in Cellebrite Pathfinder, which has helped reduce violent crimes in the Gulf Coast region while providing a better way for prosecutors to present evidence to judges and juries in court.
Rather than separate cases by agency, GCTC places all of their cases into Cellebrite Pathfinder to create one master case file. This has allowed GCTC to build a very deep contact repository that allows them to cross-reference almost any kind of evidence. Using analytics in this fashion allows GCTC to translate data much faster. It used to take months to get back to investigators requesting actionable intelligence in time-sensitive cases. Now they can do it in a matter of days.
Commander Levy detailed how this works in a recent interview. “It [Pathfinder] reduces crime,” he explained, “but more specifically it’s allowing us to reduce violent crime more rapidly. An example would be if you have a person that’s committing multiple crimes and it takes you six months to find them, how many more crimes could they committed by the time you find them?”
