Police crack down on dodgy data

Humberside Police is cleaning up its crime-fighting information and making it easier to share data with other forces.

It is using a software package - the Informatica Data Quality package - to standardise data across its crime and vehicle systems, and make sure its records are accurate and up to national quality standards.

The software is also helping it spot links between individuals and crimes, and between incidents recorded in different systems - something that was harder to do before because of poor data quality and a lack of standards.

Cheat Sheets

♦ The Computer Misuse Act
♦ ID cards
♦ Freedom of Information Act 2000

Graham Dawson, head of information services at Humberside Police said the new data system enabled the force to quickly establish where the data-quality problems were and to fix them. Poor data quality and consistency had been recognised as a major inhibitor to the successful use of technology in crime prevention and intelligence, he said.

Humberside has already cleaned data on 120,000 existing files - and found that 1,200 had duplicated data, Dawson added.

Data duplication is not the only problem - police are often given false information by people who are arrested and so these people have to be matched to existing records too.

Dawson said data sharing with officers in other forces is also possible now, and police officers are now better informed when they get to an incident.

The force tried to update and improve the system manually but it was a "very tedious process", Dawson added.

The system had been running within one of Humberside Police's internal divisions since April this year. It was then rolled out across the entire force, Dawson added.