Police Digital Summit 2022

We meet again! Great to see so many people at the Police Digital Summit 2022 

Written by Phill Ridley, Senior Business Development Consultant 

This year saw the return of the Police Digital Summit being in person, and as a sponsor and exhibitor, it was a great opportunity to meet people in person and catch up with old friends and colleagues alike. 

During the summit many important topics were discussed regarding the benefit technology can bring to policing in 2022, and most striking was the emphasis placed on the need to focus on the investment in data. The importance of building data foundations is vital to ensuring policing can maximise the return on investment in technology, as dashboards and analytics will only be able to show and use the data they rely on. 

Within these foundations it was agreed that whilst all data is important, different types of data have different values. One of the more valuable data types is Geospatial data as highlighted by Edwina Dunn in her opening keynote address. Geospatial data is a high value dataset as it impacts on almost every aspect of a policing operation. When responding to incidents commanding officers need to understand the location of officers, and their skill sets. But it is not just when responding to incidents, policing has a finite level of resource which needs to be deployed effectively for proactive operations to prevent crime and keep the public and officers safe.  

To support this, the data foundation need to be validated via a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) with change control processes for data object lifecycle management. Part of this includes validating data against an authoritative single source of the truth, such as Public Sector Geospatial Agreement data published by the Ordnance Survey.  

1Spatial’s Police Data Quality Hub is a platform with a series of applications licensed on a per app basis enabling forces to cleanse and validate their data against an authoritative source, and build the foundations for a SDI to support their data analytics. 

During a panel session, chaired by Chief Constable Jo Farrell, there were topics covered discussing why data until now has not been a priority for policing, what we can do to make it a priority and the benefits this can bring.  

Ultimately the benefit is that we can enable policing to become truly digital and data led, to achieve the benefits of the technology engine the market presents by feeding it with good quality fuel. Not only does this require investment in technology to support data infrastructures, but also investment in people and career paths to make data an attractive career path in policing. This latter point was a key focus point of the panel discussion. How do we achieve this? With senior officer buy in, and therefore data in policing needs to be made accessible and the benefits made obvious to senior decision makers. 

As well as listening to the talks, the 1Spatial team enjoyed talking to a number of delegates at our stand in the exhibition room. The National Data Strategy for policing wants to exploit the potential presented by data, however in order to exploit this potential the SDI must be considered first. This is something that has been done in other parts of government both in the UK and overseas, often supported by the 1Spatial team.  

The 1Spatial team are bringing their experience of building and maintaining SDI’s from other sectors such as Central Government and the Ministry of Defence to policing.

It was fantastic to continue the discussions raised in the talks bringing in experience from other sectors to help UK policing seize the opportunity data presents. 

If you are interested in finding out more about SDI’s and how 1Spatial supports the building and maintaining of these in UK policing operations why not have a read of our new Police ebook or contact us for more information.