Metro Nashville PD Uses Magnet AUTOMATE To Eliminate Months-Long Device Backlog In Days

Magnet Forensics, a developer of digital investigation solutions used by more than 4,000 enterprises and public safety agencies in over 100 countries, today announced that the Metro Nashville Police Department is using Magnet AUTOMATE to keep its digital investigations running 24/7/365 without human intervention.

With Magnet AUTOMATE, a solution that uses automation to orchestrate the recovery and processing of digital evidence, the Metro Nashville Police Department’s forensics unit completely eliminated a months-long violent crimes case backlog in days. Due to its success in violent crimes cases, the Metro Nashville Police Department is now deploying Magnet AUTOMATE within a second unit to investigate the fentanyl overdose epidemic.

“Public safety in Nashville dictates that we must continue to deploy cutting edge technology to help us advance investigations and identify dangerous criminals as part of our precision policing model,” said Metro Nashville Police Department Chief John Drake. “We are committed to a full-service forensics laboratory, specialized detectives to staff it, and the acquisition of evolving state-of-the-art software to hold accountable shooting suspects, sex offenders, armed robbers, and other violent individuals.

Over the past few years, digital evidence has played an increasingly pivotal role in police investigations. At the Metro Nashville Police Department, the average case taken on by its violent crimes investigators involves the analysis of three devices recovered from victims, witnesses and suspects. Some cases, however, can involve more than 20 smartphones, computers and other electronics, the unit’s investigators said. This volume of devices — and the complexity of the evidence found on them — is overwhelming digital investigators and leading to significant delays in investigations.

In its first week of use, Magnet AUTOMATE helped the Metro Nashville Police Department’s violent crimes unit process evidence in 116 cases. This task would’ve normally required six months of work, the unit’s investigators said. The newfound efficiency brought on by Magnet AUTOMATE has allowed the unit to accelerate its digital investigations and get evidence into the hands of detectives faster than it ever could.


Get The Latest DFIR News

Join the Forensic Focus newsletter for the best DFIR articles in your inbox every month.


Unsubscribe any time. We respect your privacy - read our privacy policy.

“Magnet AUTOMATE is one of the most important pieces of software ever created for law enforcement,” said Metro Nashville Police Department Det. Chad Gish, who has been performing digital investigations for the agency over the past 18 years. “The Metro Nashville Police Department wanted to use Magnet AUTOMATE to completely diminish and dismantle our backlog and we were successful in doing that in less than a week. We count on our detectives to review a lot of their data and with Magnet AUTOMATE, we’re getting this data out to them in hours and days, instead of weeks and months.”

Public safety agencies like the Metro Nashville Police Department are using Magnet AUTOMATE to streamline their digital investigations. The solution is interoperable with other investigative tools and uses them to synchronize the repetitive tasks involved in recovering and processing digital evidence. Magnet AUTOMATE can simultaneously work on multiple cases and when one is complete, it automatically proceeds to the next one. As a result, agencies are able to keep investigations running during evenings, weekends and holidays, turning hours of downtime into productive uptime.

“Digital evidence is critical to modern investigations and should not be a liability to the pursuit of justice,” said Jad Saliba, founder and chief technology officer at Magnet Forensics. “The Metro Nashville Police Department’s successful adoption of Magnet AUTOMATE serves as a beacon for all agencies looking to eliminate case backlogs and get critical digital evidence into the hands of investigators in a timely fashion.”

With Magnet AUTOMATE, the Metro Nashville Police Department has been able to:

  • Completely eliminate a months-long device backlog that was weighing on its ability to deliver justice
  • Process evidence on nearly 525 devices — 19TB worth of data — in five months
  • Get digital evidence into the hands of detectives in an average of 24 hours instead of multiple weeks
  • Improve officer wellness and limit the need for officers to return to the office on nights and weekends to advance evidence processing, in addition to allowing for more time to investigate crimes

For more information on Magnet AUTOMATE, visit magnetforensics.com and register to attend a fireside chat at the Magnet Virtual Summit with Gish and Saliba.

Leave a Comment

Latest Videos

In this episode of the Forensic Focus podcast, Si and Desi explore how artificial intelligence is being leveraged to uncover crucial evidence in investigations involving child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and examine the importance of exercising caution when implementing these tools. 

They also discuss a recent murder case in which cyber experts played a vital role in securing a conviction, and explore the unique challenges associated with using digital evidence as an alibi.

Show Notes:

A Practitioner Survey Exploring the Value of Forensic Tools, AI, Filtering, & Safer Presentation for Investigating Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) - https://dfrws.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019_USA_paper-a_practitioner_survey_exploring_the_value_of_forensic_tools_ai_filtering_safer_presentation_for_investigating_child_sexual_abuse_material_csam.pdf

Man charged with NI murder ‘faked live stream to provide alibi’ (The Guardian) - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/02/man-charged-with-ni-faked-live-stream-to-provide-alibi

A YouTuber accused of murder faked a 6-hour livestream to produce an alibi (Sportskeeda) - https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-a-youtuber-accused-murder-faked-6-hour-livestream-produce-alibi

European Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity Conference (EICC) 2023 - https://www.forensicfocus.com/event/european-interdisciplinary-cybersecurity-conference-eicc-2023/#more-493234

YouTuber reportedly faked GTA livestream to have an alibi while he committed murder (Dexerto) - https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/youtuber-reportedly-faked-gta-livestream-to-have-an-alibi-while-he-committed-murder-2052974/

Forensic Europe Expo - https://www.forensicfocus.com/event/forensic-europe-expo/#more-493225

In this episode of the Forensic Focus podcast, Si and Desi explore how artificial intelligence is being leveraged to uncover crucial evidence in investigations involving child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and examine the importance of exercising caution when implementing these tools.

They also discuss a recent murder case in which cyber experts played a vital role in securing a conviction, and explore the unique challenges associated with using digital evidence as an alibi.

Show Notes:

A Practitioner Survey Exploring the Value of Forensic Tools, AI, Filtering, & Safer Presentation for Investigating Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) - https://dfrws.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019_USA_paper-a_practitioner_survey_exploring_the_value_of_forensic_tools_ai_filtering_safer_presentation_for_investigating_child_sexual_abuse_material_csam.pdf

Man charged with NI murder ‘faked live stream to provide alibi’ (The Guardian) - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/02/man-charged-with-ni-faked-live-stream-to-provide-alibi

A YouTuber accused of murder faked a 6-hour livestream to produce an alibi (Sportskeeda) - https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-a-youtuber-accused-murder-faked-6-hour-livestream-produce-alibi

European Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity Conference (EICC) 2023 - https://www.forensicfocus.com/event/european-interdisciplinary-cybersecurity-conference-eicc-2023/#more-493234

YouTuber reportedly faked GTA livestream to have an alibi while he committed murder (Dexerto) - https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/youtuber-reportedly-faked-gta-livestream-to-have-an-alibi-while-he-committed-murder-2052974/

Forensic Europe Expo - https://www.forensicfocus.com/event/forensic-europe-expo/#more-493225

YouTube Video UCQajlJPesqmyWJDN52AZI4Q_7QiFTiuY7Vw

AI In CSAM Investigations And The Role Of Digital Evidence In Criminal Cases

Forensic Focus 22nd March 2023 12:44 pm

Throughout the past few years, the way employees communicate with each other has changed forever.<br /><br />69% of employees note that the number of business applications they use at work has increased during the pandemic.<br /><br />Desk phones, LAN lines and even VOIP have become technologies of the past workplace environment as employees turn to cloud applications on their computers and phones to collaborate with each other in today’s workplace environment.<br /><br />Whether it’s conversations in Teams, file uploads in Slack chats, or confidential documents stored in Office 365, the amount of data stored and where it is stored, is growing quicker than IT and systems administrators can keep up with.<br /><br />Corporate investigators and eDiscovery professionals need to seamlessly collect relevant data from cloud sources and accelerate the time to investigative and discovery review.<br /><br />With the latest in Cellebrite’s remote collection suite of capabilities, investigators and legal professionals can benefit from secure collection with targeted capabilities for the most used workplace applications.<br /><br />Join Monica Harris, Product Business Manager, as she showcases how investigators can:<br /><br />- Manage multiple cloud collections through a web interface<br />- Cull data prior to collection to save time and money by gaining these valuable insights of the data available<br />- Collect data from the fastest growing cloud collaboration applications like Office365, Google Workspace, Slack and Box<br />- Login to a single source for workplace app collection without logging into every app and pulling data from multiple sources for every employee<br />- Utilize a single unified collection workflow for computer, mobile and workplace cloud applications without the need to purchase multiple tools for different types of collections – a solution unique to Cellebrite’s enterprise solution capabilities

Throughout the past few years, the way employees communicate with each other has changed forever.

69% of employees note that the number of business applications they use at work has increased during the pandemic.

Desk phones, LAN lines and even VOIP have become technologies of the past workplace environment as employees turn to cloud applications on their computers and phones to collaborate with each other in today’s workplace environment.

Whether it’s conversations in Teams, file uploads in Slack chats, or confidential documents stored in Office 365, the amount of data stored and where it is stored, is growing quicker than IT and systems administrators can keep up with.

Corporate investigators and eDiscovery professionals need to seamlessly collect relevant data from cloud sources and accelerate the time to investigative and discovery review.

With the latest in Cellebrite’s remote collection suite of capabilities, investigators and legal professionals can benefit from secure collection with targeted capabilities for the most used workplace applications.

Join Monica Harris, Product Business Manager, as she showcases how investigators can:

- Manage multiple cloud collections through a web interface
- Cull data prior to collection to save time and money by gaining these valuable insights of the data available
- Collect data from the fastest growing cloud collaboration applications like Office365, Google Workspace, Slack and Box
- Login to a single source for workplace app collection without logging into every app and pulling data from multiple sources for every employee
- Utilize a single unified collection workflow for computer, mobile and workplace cloud applications without the need to purchase multiple tools for different types of collections – a solution unique to Cellebrite’s enterprise solution capabilities

YouTube Video UCQajlJPesqmyWJDN52AZI4Q_g6nTjfEMnsA

Tips And Tricks Data Collection For Cloud Workplace Applications

Forensic Focus 20th March 2023 12:00 pm

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Important: No API Key Entered.

Many features are not available without adding an API Key. Please go to the YouTube Feed settings page to add an API key after following these instructions.

Latest Articles

Share to...