Gathering data for reports and logging it for future reference takes up a large amount of police time. This time could be better spent on active police work rather than administrative tasks. On top of that, these processes can be inaccurate. The payoff for time intensive tasks should be perfect results.
In February 2018 there is the European Police Congress in Berlin. I will participate and I am invited for a panel discussion. Topic of this panel discussion will be Safety Network – Mobile Working, Apps & Co – chaired by Karl O. Feger, Saxony State Ministry of the Interior. Introduction will be done by Marco Hauprich, Senior Vice President, Digital Labs, Deutsche Post AG. On the panel we have Michael Jokisch, Federal Police Central Office, Michael Meyer-Schaudwet, Deutsche Telekom Healthcare and Security Solutions GmbH, Jürgen Schmitt*, Inspector of the police, Ministry of the Interior and Sports Rhineland-Palatinate. I am looking forward to present Anyline.com Solutions and Point of View how Police Officer’s daily work can be improved with augmented intelligence. I will share what we have learned so far, from our work with Ministry of Interior in Austria, where more Police Officer’s will be equipped with iPhones and iPads. This equipment is augmented with Anyline’s Computervision and artificial intelligence products to improve and simplify human date entry.
Unfortunately, even the best human data entry has been found to contain errors. Logging report data is also slow and, when you consider the work hours required by most data entry processes, expensive. Surprisingly, police forces and private companies persevere with human data entry, despite its well-known drawbacks.
The reasons people make errors during data entry are simple. Any time a person is required to repeatedly record codes and numbers, they will make mistakes. Fatigue and environmental factors make it almost impossible for humans to create perfect data records. Fatigue can lead to complacency when double-checking recorded results. Environmental factors such as light, weather, and location can increase the difficulty of gathering data, which increases the chance of error.
Negative effects not always directly obvious
The negative effects of collecting false data aren’t always immediately obvious. From a police perspective, inaccurate data hurts the chances of securing successful convictions against offenders. On the other side of that coin, inaccurate data could cause police to pursue wrongful convictions. In both cases, inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to wasted police time. This wasted time can end up costing police forces a significant amount of money and resources.
Anyline offers a solution to this problem without requiring police officers to undergo extensive training or carry extra equipment. Our technology turns your smartphone into a perfect scanning device. It works without an internet connection and can record ID numbers and license plates 20 times faster than a human. For a long time, police officers have recorded license plates with a pen and paper. While the simplicity of this approach may seem foolproof, it creates a unique set of challenges for on-duty police officers.
No interruption
For one, it requires a police officer to dedicate his attention to a single point of information for around 30 seconds. In this time, it is impossible to be aware of safety threats or prevent further crimes from being committed in the area. With instant scanning from Anyline, a police officer can point his smartphone at offending license plates and continue to be of service. This ensures that the license plate is perfectly recorded while the police officer remains safe and active.
The mobile scanning of license plates also means you can instantly create a digital record of the license plate. This saves time as police officers do not need to spend time on manual data entry once they return to their station. Instead, they can upload the results of their scans directly to their station database.
The net benefit of this type of scanning is huge when you realize how much time it will save. The ability to upload scan data to a dedicated backend automates a process that has been completed by hand since the start of modern policing. License plate scanning with Anyline also makes sure all administrative follow-up is accurate and supported by correct data.
Anyline offers similar technology for scanning passports and IDs that include a machine-readable zone. IDs and passports can be scanned and digitized just as quickly as license plates. Even better, the data points included in the MRZ such as name, date of birth, gender, nation of birth and more can be extracted in order to create a full profile of an individual based on their ID information.
Almost all codes can be scanned
Scanning with Anyline is also secure. Our mobile OCR technology processes all scan information on your smartphone. This means none of your scan data is sent through the cloud during processing. Scan data can be kept on an officer’s device until they are certain they have a secure connection and then uploaded to the appropriate backend system.
With Anyline, the mobile scanning of almost all codes is possible. We currently support the scanning of passports, IDs, EU license plates and EU drivers’ licenses. Our technology works on both Android and iOS devices and works through a simple, point-and-scan mobile app.
