A deal with SAS Institute Australia will see Victoria Police get access to a new software platform that will let the force’s 600+ crime analysts query and integrate results from discrete police databases.
“Police have vast amounts of information,” police minister Lisa Neville said in a statement. “This new system connects it, analyses it and puts it at their fingertips so they can fight all types of crime much more quickly.”
The new platform will offer access to a number of databases, including LEAP and Interpose, with the number of data sources to be expanded next year.
LEAP — Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) — is a custom-built mainframe application used by Victoria Police for incident and offender tracking, theft information, vehicle information and crime reporting. Interpose supports criminal investigations, intelligence and counter-terrorism operations.
The force went to market in mid-2016 seeking a COTS application that would not “directly replace any existing capabilities within Victoria Police” but facilitate its analysts getting “access to interfaced databases and systems and a suite of integrated analytics tools which are not available within the organisation today”.
Request for tender documents stated that the application would integrate datasets and “provide enhanced capability to search, validate and analyse data”; deliver “enhanced information and predictive analytics, particularly for high-risk police activities such as family violence and counter terrorism”; and integrate existing analytical processes to “remove siloed analytical outputs” and manual processes.
In addition to LEAP and Interpose, the first phase of the rollout was envisaged to include the iFace (facial recognition) database; MACPAC; the Sex Offenders Registry and National Child Offender System; the Licensing and Registration System (LARS); the Traffic Incident System (TIS); and so-called “open source” intelligence and social media data
The second phase was expected to see the more than 5000 police officers who can currently access Interpose get access to the new platform.