Law Enforcement Technology

JUL 2014

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36 Law Enforcement Technology July 2014 www.officer.com TA L K I N G P O I N T S B ig Data. It is a term that is as shrouded in uncertainty as the term "Cloud." Yet, it is a term that demands your attention and understanding. Why? Because it is real, it is not going anywhere, and harnessing it may well be the challenge facing Twenty-first Century law enforcement. If you can understand Big Data and the technology used to efficiently utilize it, you will be better equipped to meet the data-driven demands of the new "social-media citizen". How your agency meets that challenge is fundamental to both short- and long-term success. Big Data refers to the phenomenon created by the proliferation of software systems (legacy and active), websites, mobile devices, and all the other ways that agencies and people enter data on 'stuff ': demographic data, public safety data (incidents, citations, SARS, etc.), financial and credit information, loca- tions, etc. As information gets added to these systems, the data gets bigger and bigger. This unchecked growth can lead to issues of data overload (where the sheer volume of data makes it useless due to so much white noise) and lack of careful governance over where, by whom and why this data is used. Clearly, the challenge of Big Data isn't creating the data; rather, it is har- nessing the data across these systems and channeling it toward a responsible and actionable purpose. For our purposes, we will focus on one area of Big Data that is more man- ageable and within law enforcement's direct area of interest: the data created daily by the various database systems within your own community and the communities surrounding you. Depending upon your jurisdiction's size, Big Data affects you differently. For a ten-man police department, one challenge is being able to quickly and responsibly share law enforcement information across jurisdictions. As the size of the agency grows (from local PDs to county justice, up to State Law Share multiple-database information with efficiency, transparency and speed A D V A N C E M E N T S I N T E C H N O L O G Y Big Data, big challenge? The challenge of Big Data isn't creating the data; rather, it is harnessing the data across systems and channeling it toward a responsible and actionable purpose. By David N. Heffner LET_36-38_TalkingPoints0714.indd 36 6/25/14 12:01 PM

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