Collaboration has always been a cornerstone of everything we do at Griffeye. We simply believe that humans are better when working together. That is why the Analyze platform is built to interconnect and reach out to other forensic tools, platforms and databases. We recently took this concept one step further, by releasing our new Griffeye Intelligence Database (or GID).A database might not seem like the most thrilling thing in the world. But GID is much more than the typical data store. The concept of GID is built around the idea of connecting investigators with each other. The issue of silos has long been a well-recognized and major problem within many businesses and organizations. And, in our experience, silos are also one of the main obstacles for law enforcement agencies as they look to share the workload, information and knowledge – to cut backlogs, reduce redundancy and ultimately solve more cases.
Let’s rewind the tape a bit. It all started at one of our regular Friday sessions in which our developers get the chance to think outside the box and come up with innovate solutions outside the development roadmap. One of Griffeye’s senior developers, Josef Eklann, wanted to look at how we could revamp the existing database DB Manager to improve how investigators could accumulate knowledge, build intelligence and connect with each other. An idea that turned out to be bigger than he initially thought.
It didn’t take long before the entire team was involved, adding more innovative ideas to the concept. We realized that this was something that could potentially solve many of the challenges that our users were experiencing and help to create better collaboration workflows in their daily work. So, we decided to enter it into the roadmap and make it reality.
A couple of years later and the GID is now released. The key to success with GID and sharing is how easy and seamless it is. Put simply, it’s a small step for the investigator but a big impact on police work. Investigators no longer have to spend time to search for the right information or on administration and processes to share information with each other. Because that is probably one of the main reasons why so many have been working in silos. Time is crucial for investigative work. But in a time where forensic backlogs keep on growing, along with the exponential growth of the volumes of data that are constantly being seized, it’s critical to turn overwhelming amounts of data into an asset and reduce the redundancy of work between investigators, across units and regions.
It is important because it helps investigators solve more cases quicker, while at the same time reducing exposure and stress. My firm belief is that the sharing of high-quality data is the key to doing so. Because to deal with a six-month (or even a year) backlog, it is simply not possible to spend time on work that could be more effectively handled by technology.
Since that very first session where GID was initiated until today, we have had the very same mission: to connect forensic examiners, analysts and investigators with accumulated intelligence to eliminate backlogs, reduce redundancy and give them the ability to solve more cases.
We have now taken the first, and biggest, step by releasing GID. It is a solid foundation for adding more capacity that enables investigators to share intelligence and collaborate to solve cases. Now, we need to further adapt it to suit different needs and situations. One ambition is, for example, to let the GID automatically de-conflict known/unknown information in real-time between ongoing investigations across a wide network of investigators. This creates great potential in connecting investigators with, for instance, first-generation material as soon as the data is found in the front line. And not at a later stage when the case is closed, and data shared to a central database. Another ambition, and soon available, is the ability to let the GID present case history next to data that has appeared in previous investigations.
All in all, we will continue to build more powerful solutions that help information sharing and collaboration. The vision is that entire countries seamlessly will connect to different standalone GIDs to work together on cases, so that we can say goodbye to silos once and for all.
/ Johann Hofmann, CEO of Griffeye
