National security and policing agencies

OPINION: Last week, police leaders and ICT suppliers gathered for the two-day Police ICT Summit 2019 in Hinckley, Leicestershire which attracted over 300 delegates. Based on the presentations, one of those delegates has sent us their 'end-of-conference' progress report on the state of Police ICT.

ANALYSIS: Media reports suggest a surge in 'Albanian mafia' involvement in drug trafficking and organised crime. However, Anna Sergi of the University of Essex warns that this misrepresents the role of Albanian offenders and networks, and damages our understanding of the complexities of organised crime, and the global Albanian diaspora.

INTERVIEW: As the Police ICT Summit gets underway this week, Police ICT Company CEO Ian Bell talks to Policing Insight about the challenges he's faced in his first year in the role and what the future holds for Police ICT.

INSIGHT: As we approach the annual Police ICT Summit, Policing Insight asks police leaders and ICT stakeholders what they believe are the biggest challenges facing Police ICT and what they hope the Summit might achieve.

Analysis: Devon and Cornwall Police Inspector John Shuttleworth shares the lessons learnt from Operation Fardel, the force's response to a national telephone scam, and recommends ways to help close the gap in the police service's response to this fraud.

Opinion: As the Police Foundation's latest research once again shines a light on policing's lacklustre response to fraud investigations, Policing Insight's Bernard Rix says sky-high statistics appear to have left the service too stunned to respond. Is the policing response to fraud the proverbial 'frog in boiling water'?

Analysis: Fraud accounts for a third of reported crime in England and Wales yet the number of cases investigated and prosecuted is tiny compared to the volume. As the Police Foundation publishes its latest research on improving the police response to fraud victims, Ian Dyson, Commissioner for the City of London Police which leads nationally on fraud, says things are changing.

ANALYSIS: Vast, viable and virtual: cyberspace is a new continent that cybercriminals are only just beginning to exploit. Policing Insight contributor and Senior Research Fellow at CENTRIC Andrew Staniforth explores the areas most at risk and the need for unprecedented cooperation to combat cybercrime.

ANALYSIS: A new organised crime strategy was launched by the government in early November. However, Anna Sergi, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Essex, warns that seeing organised crime as a national security threat is a poor way of understanding its social and economic roots.

INSIGHT: Small and medium size businesses struggle to get a foothold in supplying ICT to the police service. Police leaders joined this year's Govtech summit in Paris to examine ways for smaller businesses to make themselves heard in this sector.

INSIGHT: Fifteen European Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) have built a unique platform to create and share innovative solutions. Policing Insight contributor and Senior Research Fellow at CENTRIC Andrew Staniforth explains the importance of developing new ways to tackle technology-driven transnational crime.

New Report: In the latest report from the CoPaCC National Police ICT User Survey 2018, officers and staff share the challenges they face in managing digital evidence. A story of unreliable and incompatible systems, insufficient data bandwidth forcing the use of physical media plus a shortage of skills and resources, all against a backdrop of ever increasing volumes of evidence required for disclosure. Read the results and analyses here in the CoPaCC Digital Evidence Management: User Perspectives Report.

LIVEBLOG: Policing Insight's Live Blog of the Police Foundation Annual Conference 2018, taking place on Wednesday, 24th October 2018 in central London. The conference, whose theme was "Innovation and learning in policing", included keynote speeches from some of the best policing leaders, thinkers and practitioners.

OPINION: Clue provides investigation and intelligence software to around a half of all UK police forces. In this exclusive article for Policing Insight, Clue’s Commercial Director, Thomas Drohan, provides an insight into his thinking on joining The Police ICT Company’s vendor management service as a managed vendor and what the future might have in store.

Opinion: Earlier in the summer techUK brought together a group of senior police officers, civil servants, and tech industry leaders to explore how technology can best be harnessed to combat fraud. techUK's Henry Rex shares the group's recommendations.

INSIGHT: Published today, the "Police ICT: User Perspectives 2018" report includes articles providing a range of views on the results and what should happen next. Policing Insight's editor, Tina Orr Munro, here acknowledges that some progress on police ICT has been made since last year's survey - but widespread frustrations reveal the police service still has a very long way to go.

ANALYSIS: Yesterday's National Audit Office report on policing was damning on the Home Office's failure to understand the impact of budget cuts on the financial sustainability of police forces. Rick Muir of The Police Foundation examines the report's findings and the need for a clear national strategy on policing.

Analysis: With an online crime reported to police every ten minutes, forces are investing in cyber security training. In the final of our three part series focusing on cyber-crime, CEO and co-founder of Cyber Security Intelligence Alfred Rolington says whilst forces are making progress, there's a long way to go.

Long Read: In the second of our three-part series on cyber crime and its effects on  UK policing, CEO and co-founder of Cyber Security Intelligence Alfred Rolington offers a detailed insight into the current cyber crime landscape and how UK policing is managing the threat.

ANALYSIS: The scale of the challenge involved in protecting the UK's borders is unprecedented. Professor Babak Akhgar of Sheffield Hallam University explains how the work of Project ROBORDER - testing innovative surveillance technologies - could help border security address emerging threats.

INSIGHT: Our new series, exclusive to Policing Insight, examines the impact of cyber-crime on UK policing. In the first of three articles, CEO and co-founder of Cyber Security Intelligence Alfred Rolington explores the '4th Industrial Revolution' and the factors leading to the emergence of cyber-crime.

OPINION: The strain on police efficiencies is greater than ever, with one of its key contributory factors - siloed data - potentially costing police officers up to 28 days of productivity a year. Coeus Software’s CEO Simon Hall explores the effect of this and how the latest cloud and mobile technology developments, changing software procurement practices and wider digitisation in policing can help the frontline.

ANALYSIS: In the second of three extracts from Vigilant Research’s latest in depth report on police technology futures, Director Stephen Roberts examines futures capability in other public sectors.

ANALYSIS: Report Watch summarises the main findings of reports that impact on policing and includes responses from the main stakeholders as well as media reaction. Here we take a look at Amnesty International's Trapped in the Matrix which examines the Metropolitan Police Services' Gangs Violence Matrix which it concludes is unfit for purpose.