Integrating Technological Advancement for Better Evidence Management in Colleges

Universities can centralize video and other types of evidence, including dashcams, body-worn cameras, cell phone footage, and building surveillance, onto a single platform by implementing efficient digital evidence management systems. This makes it simple for investigators to handle, preserve, arrange, and distribute important evidence, resulting in faster and more robust cases.

Fremont, CA: In recent years, addressing occurrences ranging from minor infractions to significant criminal activities has become increasingly important for universities. Effectively organizing and assessing the growing amount of video evidence produced by sources such as body-worn cameras, cell phones, and campus monitoring presents significant difficulties for universities.

However, by utilizing AI-powered digital evidence management systems, colleges and campus police can expedite investigations, simplify procedures, and foster a sense of confidence among their student body.

Time is critical in a crime or significant incident on a college campus. In the past, college investigators and security personnel had to manually go through hours of film, examine pictures, and attempt to piece together disparate knowledge. Now that artificial intelligence has advanced, these procedures can be automated, cutting down the days or weeks to compile and analyze the evidence to just a few minutes or hours.

AI-powered evidence management has several benefits, including its capacity to compile information from various unrelated sources and store it all in one spot. Along with streamlining the evidence collection process, this also offers a smooth downstream workflow that includes deep analytics, suspect identification, redaction, and identifying individuals and vehicles of interest.

AI-powered digital evidence management can also enhance campus security in the following two ways:

Streamlining Investigations with Automated Workflows

Colleges commonly encounter incidents involving a lot of video data, such as student misconduct, theft, or violence. The time required to evaluate this data manually can be too much for campus security or police teams. Still, AI technology can significantly reduce the workload by automating a large portion of the process.

AI systems can sort through hours of video, identifying important moments or interesting individuals using machine learning algorithms in just a few minutes. Without requiring human assessment, AI may, for instance, search through all accessible video footage from various sources and identify matched people based on particular physical characteristics, such as attire, body type, or even behavior patterns, if investigators are attempting to identify a suspect.

Some AI systems even allow for tracking and identifying people without using personally identifiable information (PII), safeguarding the privacy and identity of employees and students.

This enables university investigators to concentrate on more complex decision-making and case-building instead of becoming mired in laborious manual procedures, saving time and money. It also allows campus police departments to expedite investigations, assist in resolving cases and address issues before they become more serious.

Multi-Source Evidence Collection

One of the particular difficulties of college settings is the range of sources from which video evidence might be gathered. A single incident may include dashcam film from campus vehicles, mobile phone records, body-worn cameras utilized by campus security, and even footage from building surveillance cameras. Investigators would have to collect and examine the film piecemeal without a method to compile these sources, which is a laborious and error-prone operation.

Thanks to AI-powered tools, colleges can compile evidence from these various sources into a single, unified platform. This digital archive allows investigators to quickly find and compare video footage from multiple viewpoints, periods, or sources to create a more thorough and accurate account of events. Additionally, having all the evidence in one location guarantees everything is noticed and makes it easier for investigators to track necessary proof.