Policing by Smartphone: What you need to know

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1 Policing by Smartphone: What you need to know Every day there are new ways for responders in the field and command staff to leverage the technology they already carry in their pocket. Agencies of all sizes are seeing the benefits of evolving smartphone technology that improve connectivity and provide increased access to data. If you re looking to make the most out of the most mobile of public safety technology, here s what your agency needs to know. Public safety technology is advancing rapidly. In public safety, the move toward smartphone technology was slower than in other sectors. Ten years ago, many agencies still had rules against officers using their personal cellphones on the job. While they were tied to radios or inferior mobile phones, officers often discovered that their personal devices quickly surpassed the technology they were officially issued. We found out that most of the guys phones had better reception than the bag phones we gave them in the car, said Clay County Sheriff Andy Howe. It only made sense to use them. Public safety may have been slower to adapt, but that is quickly changing. With purpose-built public safety preemption and prioritization systems such as FirstNet being implemented at the state and national levels by major communications providers, access to mobile information is quickly becoming a reality across the public safety landscape. Agencies across the nation are embracing the technology. Even the largest police department in the country, the New York City Police Department, didn t start issuing phones until 2015, and it now has 36,000 officers equipped. The NYPD explained that the ability to send out alerts and give officers access to data made everyone in the department more efficient, safer, and happier. It s going to act like a force multiplier, Inspector Antony Tasso, commanding officer of the NYPD s Strategic Technology Division, told the New York Daily News. You re not just sending (information) to people assigned to that precinct, but you are sending it to all our phones in that geographical area.

2 Keep officers safer and leadership well informed. Today, constant connectivity is more than just a benefit, it s an expectation at every level of the agency and a way to keep everyone better informed and most importantly, safer. When St. Louis Park Police Department in Minnesota first issued smartphones, they only provided them to the department s SWAT team members and others who would need to be paged or called in for duty for an event. It worked so well they now issue them to all sworn personnel for communication and collecting evidence, like statements or photographs. We really got into it for simplicity s sake, said St. Louis Park Police Officer and Technology Project Coordinator Max Peltola. In all types of public safety agencies, shift supervisors or top leadership staff are expected to always have a handle on what is going on. They use smartphones to reach out, monitor CAD calls and review reports, and to make themselves available. Agency staff at all levels can work investigations and contact people or ask a question to a supervisor without having to go back to the office or broadcast over the radio. The ability to always reach someone in charge is a benefit to both leaders and officers in the field, says Howe. It s very different than it was for me as an officer, where my only choice was to radio in and ask somebody to call the sheriff at home, added Howe. Now they never have a situation where they can t reach someone to ask a question. Getting out of the patrol car allows for better community policing. Agencies find that having the ability to work without being tethered to a police car enhances community policing. Officers and deputies are more approachable and able to interact in face-to-face with citizens or when they have the freedom to leave their vehicles. With smartphones they stay connected while wading into the crowd during public events or patrolling on foot, motorcycle, mounted, and bicycle patrols. Smartphones also make it easier to connect with citizens through social media. The public is increasingly turning to channels like Facebook and Twitter for information about incidents in progress and the agencies themselves. Public safety agencies successfully use social media much more efficiently when they can take pictures, post, and get alerts on smartphones. We re able to craft our message in regards to our mission as a department using those tools, said Peltola, of the St. Louis Park Police Department. It s a way for us to get our message across about our service and programs to the community.

3 One device can replace many for evidence collection. Smartphones allow agencies to eliminate several types of additional equipment, making good fi nancial sense. Prior to smartphones, St. Louis Park officers had to carry separate cameras and audio recorders, and the agency had to issue batteries and equipment, plus teach offi cers how to use them and keep track of all of it. Downloading data from multiple devices also added to the workload and slowed sharing of information. Peltola remembers investigating a domestic incident as a patrol offi cer where he set up a digital recorder to take audio testimony from a victim on the hood of his car and then forgot that it was there and drove away, as the recorder crashed to the ground. The smartphone fi ts right into your pocket and it s something you need for other things, Peltola said. We re looking for ways to do more with that one piece of technology. In the St. James Parish Sheriff s Office of Louisiana, deputies use their personal phones while on duty. In the past, the agency s policies required deputies to call a shift supervisor to bring a camera to avoid taking photos on their personal cellphones. The concern was that evidentiary images couldn t be tightly controlled or that the phones could end up being subpeanaoed at trial. With Zuercher Field Ops, images, notes, and video are not saved on the phone but are uploaded directly into the app and can be attached instantly to case files. The sheriff s office now uses the Zuercher Field Ops application which allows them to take photos on personal phones within the app and securely upload them directly to case fi les. Since photos, notes, videos, and voice recordings aren t stored in the phone, the Field Ops app addresses the risk of evidence being inappropriately shared, even if a phone is lost or stolen. It s saving us time and it takes the photo directly off the phone and into the app, said St. James Parish IT Specialist Jason Chabaud. It s a great perk to have that immediate upload. Deploying applications and adopting their use is easy. Some agencies held off on smartphones because of concerns about adoption. However, they have found that it hasn t been a diffi cult transition at all since most responders have been using apps for years. When the St. James Parish Sheriff s Office began to install Field Ops on offi cers phones, the younger, more tech-savvy deputies were the fi rst to volunteer. However, when other offi cers saw the way that those with the application were using it, they wanted it too. They saw that they could get call information right there on their phone and it really opened them up to it, Chabaud said. For me it s very simple, I send them the activation code and that s really all I have to do. They log in the same way that they use their mobile system and it s pretty much hands off for me.

4 To BYOD or not to BYOD When moving toward mobile technology, agencies must decide whether to implement a bring your own device, or BYOD policy, or issue agency smartphones. BYOD Less cost for the agency in device maintenance Responders use the device/operating system they prefer Reimbursement for the device and service can be seen as a perk Device set-up is not the responsibility of the agency Quicker deployment AGENCY Higher level of security and protection Uniform operating systems and platforms IT support of devices is uniform Clearer expectations of acceptable use Control what apps can be downloaded and used CJIS compliance with the ease of a smartphone app. Security of data and communications kept many agencies from jumping on the smartphone bandwagon early on. Today, features within the actual devices and many apps provide secure management of communications and crime scene evidence. Agencies have the ability to limit their staff to only secure, approved apps. The Department of Homeland Security tested 33 early public safety ios and Android apps last year, finding 18 with critical flaws in their security. As a result, DHS provided guidance on the use of integrated security offered by the operating system of the mobile device to strengthen security and meet CJIS requirements. CJIS compliance requires multiple levels of security, far beyond common username and password verification at the application level that consumers are familiar with in other apps. Zuercher Field Ops was designed around CJIS security from the ground up in order to meet the needs of public safety data. Smartphones are the future of smarter policing. Smartphones are just the beginning. Wearables, such as smartwatches which could work in concert with or replace smartphones, bring personalization and new levels of safety to responders in the field. In the not-too-distant future, biometric sensing capabilities, along the lines of what s used today in mobile heart monitoring devices, could provide dispatch with critical information if a responder can t communicate. For instance, a device could sense location, specific motion, speed, pulse, sounds any number of factors, indicating a foot pursuit and alert dispatch to send additional units. The same holds true for an officer down. Or a responder could request assistance silently with a specific tap or deliberate wrist motion.

5 As technology becomes more complex, the challenge for providers is to simplify data and insights derived from these mobile devices. At Zuercher, that s exactly what we re doing. Our new Field Ops app provides agencies with: Simple, consumer-like user interface Call for service data Digital evidence collection tools Mapping and AVL Secure CJIS compliant platform Easy to deploy application Learn more about Field Ops and other mobile applications at or calling Confidential and Proprietary Zuercher Technologies, LLC. Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved