Recent tragic events like the Plymouth shootings and the murder of MP Sir David Amess reaffirm the critical role that capturing video footage and interactions plays in being able to quickly investigate incidents and ascertain what happened.
In both incidents the need is to fully understand what happened and to leverage every possible feed of information to recreate a clear and holistic view of the incident. What is equally important is to gain an understanding of why it happened, and this may involve going back in time and uncovering what seems to be unconnected recordings of interactions that may hold vital clues.
The more we capture, the broader our view
Traditionally, emergency services have focused on recording the interactions that pass through the control room – the calls from the public, the radio interactions and key data from command-and-control systems.
Today, there are many more sources that could deliver potential evidence – CCTV footage, bodycams, location services on devices, images shared on social media and videos captured by the public on their dashcams or smartphones.
Recording and incident capture needs to ensure that it is capable of taking feeds from all of these sources, but more importantly, pulling these together in a single hub. This enables each recording to be tagged, and indexed and for different sources to be linked together. For example, a radio transmission may be tagged with the geo-location data. This data can be used to link the radio interaction with CCTV footage for that moment in time, from that geo-location.
Today, it is also important that video or recordings such as smartphone or dashcam footage can also be ingested, tagged and linked in the same hub, broadening the view of the incident.
Holistic Reconstruction
With all of the recordings and video in one location and with comprehensive tagging and indexing, it becomes possible to holistically reconstruct the incident and the time leading up to and after the incident.
A chronological playback can be produced that pulls together all of the sources and reconstructs this in real time. For example, CCTV footage of the area along with the recording of the initial 999 call, radio transmission CCTV footage as the first responder arrives, etc.
In effect, rather than having to review the incidents in terms of all of the component parts, it is possible to see these collectively and gain all perspectives at the same time. What is more, having many of the capture links in place, this can happen in near real-time, enabling those who are responding to an incident to actually see the reconstruction from a few minutes before.
Analysing Past and Present Recordings To Uncover Evidence
Having the ability to link and analyse captured interactions and video recording is not just essential for incident reconstruction but can provide critical information to support investigations.
The trials currently underway in France centring on the November 2015 attacks in Paris demonstrate just how complex it can be to create a timeline that involves multiple perpetrators, across lengthy time periods and relying on many different data inputs. Yet being able to do so is absolutely critical to ensuring a true understanding of that day’s events is established and the justice system can act with confidence.
Today, the technology is very accurate at transcribing both audio and video making it possible to mine conversations and actions along with structured data to uncover links and piece together what may have transpired leading up to and during the event. For example, a name or a particular phrase picked up in an incident can be instantly mined across all previous interactions uncovering links that would otherwise be missed.
Pulling The Past Into Your Future
Analysing historic recordings is only powerful if these can be consolidated on a single platform. By taking the hub approach, operators are able to ingest and tag historic recordings from multiple legacy platforms. This not only ensures that you have a single pane of glass on to everything but enables investigations to leverage recordings that may span many years.
We now live in a digital world where much more data, video and interactions can be captured. There is a tremendous opportunity for emergency services to capitalise on this to not only help them to respond to incidents more effectively but to also quickly and thoroughly conduct investigations.
If you are interested in learning more about the capabilities discussed in this blog, we would be more than happy to walk you through what is possible and what is being utilised by emergency services around the world. Simply reach out to the Liquid Voice team on 0113 200 2020 or drop us an email at sales@liquidvoice.co.uk.
