Gwent Police officers have ditched the traditional notepad in favour of the 21st Century smartphone.
Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent Ian Johnston has welcomed the hi-tech approach after he supported a successful £1.5 million funding bid to the Home Office’s Police Innovation Fund.
Together with the South Wales Police force, officers in Gwent will be issued with smartphones or tablets installed with a dedicated software app for recording and accessing crime information.
Gwent PCC Mr Johnston said: “The whole purpose of this project is to get more officers out of stations and back on the street. Officers using these devices now have access to a wealth of information in the palm of their hands.
“This will help improve efficiency and allow them to record and present evidence in a far more professional and transparent manner. This will no doubt save countless hours of policing time which would usually have been spent behind desks on administration, thus maximising value for money for the taxpayer.”
Gwent Police Assistant Chief Constable Julian Williams added: “This technology will revolutionise policing, bringing it firmly into the 21st Century. Key information will be available to officers whether they are out on patrol or at the scene of a crime. This will undoubtedly allow them to carry out their duties more efficiently and effectively.
Officially rolled out on Tuesday, December 8, the project is a UK first with two forces developing their own mobile police data technology together.
The devices and software will allow officers to record video and photographs of crime scenes and capture witness statements in audio and visual form.
This information can then immediately be uploaded to a central database for other officers to access.
The two police forces have said it will also allow easier access to each others information for when incidents cross force borders.
The devices can send officers ‘push notification’ messages with vital information while they are en route to an incident and can allow them to download crime information about a particular area before they arrive.
This technology is no doubt extremely useful for communicating information between officers. Still, if I were a policeman, I would retain a notebook in my pocket for when the battery dies when on patrol.