The government wants to “identify and accelerate innovative technologies” that can help the police meet the challenges of processing digital evidence.

Chief constable Sara Thornton – the chair of the National Police Chiefs Council – recently met with other senior officers, prosecutors, and Home Office officials “to understand the current and future challenges posed by digital disclosures within the criminal justice system in order to understand how technology might help to solve them”.

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The gathering was hosted by international relations specialist the Ditchley Foundation and the Defence and Security Accelerator – a government agency jointly run by the Ministry of Defence and dedicated to finding and supporting the development of defence and security tech. The accelerator will now use the findings of the event and work with potential suppliers “to identify and accelerate innovative technologies to help address the priority challenges” the police face in processing digital evidence.

The government said: “Law enforcement agencies throughout the world have been wrestling with the problem of how to manage the vast quantities and types of digital data now associated with most criminal investigations, in accordance with proper application of disclosure principles.” 
 
It added: “While more data brings new opportunities to leverage information for successful prosecutions, there is the challenge of collecting, processing and using this data in a proportionate and targeted way. In addition, the use of connected and internet enabled digital devices is likely to increase meaning that the already overwhelming quantity of data involved is likely to continue reaching new orders of magnitude.”