Node4 has delivered a cloud-based digital forensics analysis solution for West Midlands Police Force, in partnership with Microsoft and Exterro.
The police force established a digital forensics team in 2003 to deal with an increasing volume of digital evidence, however its on-premises IT infrastructure had become outdated.
This was slowing down processes and raising issues with securing and managing data to policing standards.
The new solution, FTK Central hosts the digital forensics analysis application in a Node4 data centre. It also manages the IT infrastructure and ensures all gathered data is stored in compliance with policing and wider data protection standards.
FTK Central went live in May 2022 with 50 users and, so far, has been instrumental in processing data for 70 cases.
West Midlands Police’s Digital Forensics/Incident Response Supervisor, Detective Sergeant John Price KPM, said:
“When you understand that around 75% of the cases we handle deal with indecent images of children, you can see why speed and accuracy are so important.
“You can imagine, with the data we’re dealing with, trust between us and our managed services provider is imperative.”