Article Why Cloud Should be the Default Platform for Policing
By null / 27 Aug 2020 / Topics: Mobility Cloud Microsoft Azure
By null / 27 Aug 2020 / Topics: Mobility Cloud Microsoft Azure
Digital has transformed virtually every aspect of modern life, so it should come as no surprise that citizen expectations have risen when it comes to the delivery of public services.
People can access a world of information and entertainment from their smartphones, pay their bills and taxes online, and control everyday appliances through an app or smart speaker. In the workplace, new technologies are augmenting human capability, automating laborious and time-consuming tasks, and allowing staff to work from any location.
Keeping up with the digitally aware citizen’s demands is a challenge that many public sector organisations have to face and one that police forces are acutely aware of.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council and other bodies believe digital can improve levels of service, allow forces to maximise the effectiveness of their data resources, and ultimately keep the public safer.
These are just a few examples of how new technology can revolutionise policing in the UK, but there is one common thread that will link all digital innovation – the cloud. Legacy systems are simply incapable of delivering the functionality, flexibility and scalability required to enable these solutions. The cloud helps police forces collect, manage and analyse huge amounts of data efficiently and securely and adoption is essential if digitisation is to be realised.
With cloud infrastructure, police forces can store data in a central repository that can be accessed by multiple applications and users regardless of location. This not only enables the new use cases we have seen but also allows more effective data sharing between different forces.
By storing data remotely, police forces can share information with each other without the need to physically retrieve data, such as CCTV footage, from another station. Travel wastes police time and also increases the risk of data loss by using a USB stick. This capability lays the foundation for a national database that will make AI applications even more powerful – especially in data intensive fields such as counter terrorism.
Police forces also benefit from the investments made by public cloud vendors in new services and security. By outsourcing their data storage to the cloud, police forces also ease the security and compliance burden on IT teams.
Microsoft, Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Oracle have UK-based data centres that are compliant with data protection regulations and are approved by the UK’s National Police Information Risk Management Team.
Microsoft’s Azure data centres have been signed off by the Home Office to ‘Level 3’, which allows for the storage of sensitive information. This includes millions of hours of video camera footage by the Metropolitan Police.
In a further endorsement, the National Police Technology Committee (NPTC) provides blueprints for forces to plan their migration to Microsoft Cloud services like Azure and Office 365 as part of the National Enablers Programme (NEP).
Other players in the UK police IT ecosystem also provide their services directly through the Microsoft Cloud. This includes data analytics company Chorus Intelligence, which analyses millions of pieces of information, such as call records, and aggregates them to help officers with their enquiries.
Other vendors are also accelerating their efforts to support UK policing through new data centres and compliancy initiatives. The Home Office has moved the UK’s national-level police IT systems to AWS’s London region, satisfied that the company’s data centres are an ideal home for such sensitive data. Meanwhile, Oracle is providing individual forces, such as West Midlands Police, with cloud-based HR and ERP applications to help manage its workforce and optimise resources.
But despite these advantages, there has been some resistance to adoption. According to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, 75% of police forces still manage some of their data and applications on-premise, while 71% store less than a quarter of their data in the cloud. More than a tenth (13%) do not store anything in the cloud at all[1]. Such figures are unsustainable in the cloud-first future of government and policing.
After a period of shrinking budgets and staff cuts, the government plans to hire 20,000 new police officers. Cloud-based applications and infrastructure will augment the capabilities of these new recruits, enable new use cases and make existing processes more cost-effective and productive – benefits that are beyond the limits of conventional IT.
For more details on 'How Insight can support your force with your cloud journey', please email the Insight Police Team on IPT@insight.com or call 0344 846 3333.
Policing in the UK will be transformed by new technologies that will deliver productivity gains, cost efficiencies and keep the public safe. However, legacy IT systems are unsuited to maximise this potential. The cloud offers the capabilities, scalability and security required to deliver this revolution.
