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Why you need Data-Central

Today, Digital Evidence Management Systems (DEMS) providers mainly support their own first party devices (e.g., in-car, BWC) and support only a limited list of proprietary files captured from 3rd party devices. The use of video recordings and multimedia in investigations has grown exponentially. This generates a need for new solutions to handle the increased size, complexity and variety of data that bogs down traditional systems and workflows.

As agencies continue to realize the immense demand of supporting proprietary files such as video, 3D applications, cell phone content, documents and more, they require an easy way to ingest digital evidence from their 3rd party systems, as well as manage all their evidence in one central system increases.

The current law enforcement environment, including prosecutors and county IT, has no easy solution on the horizon for managing legacy and current digital content. At the same time, caseloads are becoming more complex and pressing as files and formats age, increasing the risk of losing critical evidence. Agencies have been further motivated to find solutions to migrate their existing historical evidence in an affordable fashion for long-term management. Evidence currently stored on secondary devices such as VHS/LTO tape, CD/DVD/Blue-ray, thumb drives, obsolete hardware, end-of-life formats, are at the risk of physical damage from natural disasters need to be securely migrated. 

Law Enforcement agencies need to protect and house their evidence for many years or “forever” as required by law. Digital evidence becomes increasingly difficult to retrieve and play back each year as playback devices become obsolete, and/or incur physical damage. Enter DATA-CENTRAL.

How Data-Central works

Data-Central (DC) is a hybrid middleware tool and a logical software system that comes with defined capabilities such as communication protocols, data  transformation, mapping, and connectivity. Standardizing end-point connectivity of systems, applications and data integrations are made easy with DC’s APIs; effectively acting as an extension of your existing software.

From Data-Central’s software interface, users can select, review, and determine evidentiary value, or ifthe file needs to be forensically enhanced (dark, blurry, etc.). Users can determine the desired workflow or automate the process via tagging (manually or automatically). DC supports bidirectional communication with 3rd party systems to support automated tagging with several types of meta-data, i.e., descriptive, structural, administrative, and statistical. Data-Central also automatically extracts EXIF metadata and applies it to each file.

Based on the metadata applied to the files, any desired workflow will be achieved. Files are sent to hot, warm, or cold storage (cloud and/or on-premises) and a link will be sent to the customers’ RMS, DEMS, or any preferred backend software. Should the desired workflow be to  end all files directly to their backend software, DC may be configured to do so. Files, metadata, and audits will be synchronized or migrated for a seamless single user interface for all digital files.

Users select files and folders from local sources or secondary devices, enter in metadata and begin the ingestion process. Metadata is automatically pulled from RMS or CAD systems. Data-Central is designed to facilitate the ingestion of key evidence types, from 3rd party systems and secondary devices, along with
metadata and audits, to provide value to the customers’ existing DEMS. Changes to, and/or migration off those 3rd party systems is not required. DC effectively acts as an extension of the existing DEMS.

Data-Central was built using the “API First” development principle. Dynamic Workflow Solutions publicly provides the APIs used to integrate their Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD), Records Management System (RMS), surveillance system, BWC management software, Incident management System, and their DEMS software to automatically push data between applications.

Key features:

  • Eliminates data silos
  • Integrates with existing DEMS and other asset management solutions
  • Automated evidence/metadata extraction
  • Move away from aging/obsolete secondary devices
  • Allows migration from old systems
  • Automates evidence extraction from 3rd-party systems
  • Supports proprietary video (and other) file formats
  • Provides direct client integration into VMS systems

Key takeaways:

  • Allows disparate systems to act as a single DEMS
  • Affordable solution that does NOT require changes to existing software
  • Storage agnostic – Cloud, On-Premise, or Hybrid
  • Uses existing storage platforms and technology
  • Support for 3rd-party systems
  • Support for proprietary files
  • Maintains first instance evidence

For more information, or to schedule a demo, please call: (703) 486-0500 ext. 114