• The problem
Determining identity is one of the key principles in any LEA investigation concerning crime, disorder or terrorism. A range of intelligence sources can be used to answer identity based investigative questions. Essentially at SPIRIT we seek to establish an identity based on focussed investigative questions that would infer:
1. Identity from a name
2. Identity from a physical attribute
3. Confirming an identity overtly and covertly
4. Alias and ‘true’ identity
5. Evidence, contributing to the wider intelligence framework
Often LEAs are starting their investigation with a name, which seems all well and good, but depending on how the name is spelt, there can be numerous permutations. For example Caitlyn Taylor could appear 64 ways and this assumes that there are no spelling issues. When considering less familiar foreign names, the risk of error increases significantly.
Offenders generally leave a trace, whether that's CCTV imagery, voice recordings or a something as simple as a shoe print, the difficulty is using that trace to compare against others to identify a common link and therefore hopefully an identity. Most of this work is often carried out manually.
Once LEAs establish a potential identity the next hurdle is confirming it, in overt investigations, LEAs can take fingerprints and DNA that positively link a subject to an identified profile; where LEAs difficulty increases is within covert investigations where activity often serves just to increase confidence in an identity rather than confirming it. However, what is someone's true identity, the one we know, the one they were born with, the one they identify with, the last one they give us..? This constitutes a fundamental issue behind SPIRIT.
• Society
Local community safety is affected by regional, national and international factors and as such, it's right and appropriate that we utilise relevant information sharing agreements and protocols. The question is, are we sharing the right identity information.
To understand the need for Spirit tools, it's important to be sighted on the complexity of the current law enforcement mission.
Law Enforcement complexity:
• Globalisation
• Advancing Technology
• Altered Identities
• Increasing Demand
• Limited Resources
• Objectives
Through our end user cases we established a set of criteria that the development team needed to deliver to ensure that the Spirit Tools added value to LEAs work.
The tools had to be simple and intuitive to use, as this reduces training abstraction costs.
The tools have to comply with the highest ethical standards.
LEAs didn’t want to duplicate effort, so the tool had to be able to draw on existing intelligence search tools.
Reliable & Timely: The system needs to be robust and reliable as there may not be any post delivery support. It also needs to return results quickly it it’s to be of value to operational teams
Auditable: As part of the ethics and integrity build, the system must have an audit trail to ensure that it is not being misused.
Secure: Data protection, integrity and security are imperative to law enforcement; the system therefore has to comply to high security standards
