Police Data Management is Getting a Security and Speed Boost
Supannee Hickman / Shutterstock.com
TASER’s partnership with Microsoft Azure will allow the law enforcement tech company to comply with FBI’s CJIS Security Policy.
Two giants in law enforcement tech are promising police agencies improved security and privacy surrounding digital evidence collection and management.
TASER is coupling its Axon Platform and Evidence.com with the Microsoft Azure cloud and Windows 10 devices, the companies announced Monday morning at the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference in Chicago.
The partnership represents TASER’s split with the Amazon Web Services cloud platform in favor of one contractually committed to complying with the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy, according to Microsoft.
“We’re combining our global scale, technical expertise and regulatory security commitments to enable officers to become the most connected possible to do their job most effectively,” Mike Donlan, Microsoft’s vice president of U.S. state and local government, told Route Fifty in an interview. “Whether it’s keeping citizens safe, better monitoring city streets or responding to national disasters, data can transform emergency response at a hyperscale only our cloud platform can bring.”
Police agencies want a cloud solution they can trust to meet stringent government requirements, Donlan said, and the high state and local adoption of Microsoft’s government cloud platform is a testament to its success complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, IRS Publication 1075 and CJIS.
Existing customers shouldn’t expect any disruption or additional costs as TASER migrates to Microsoft Azure, but when it comes to intelligence the partnership offers greater real-time analysis and Windows 10 devices will soon be found in squad cars.
“Information awareness of data from systems, sensors and video is key, as is the ability to process that quickly at scale and react through faster insights, especially when responding to an imminent threat,” Donlan said.
As the Internet of Things is applied to law enforcement, agencies are testing out all kinds of officer-worn sensors and devices—body cameras being the most prominent—that feed into their evidence management systems. So it’s important Evidence.com, TASER’s platform for managing collected data analysis, workflow and other business processes, can handle the information increase efficiently.
Axon’s Azure integration is scheduled to be previewed by the end of the year and will be publicly available in the first quarter of 2016, and expect Microsoft to announce similar solutions amplifying its other law enforcement tech partners during the IACP conference.
(Photo by Supannee Hickman / Shutterstock.com)
Dave Nyczepir is News Editor for Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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