From mobile apps to drones, the future of public safety technology is exciting.
While on the ground this year at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Annual Conference and Exposition, attendees saw numerous examples of the public safety industry moving toward a mobile-first future. These solutions are engineered to help public safety officers better serve their communities in more ways than ever before.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the most exciting trends on display at the show this year.
Integration of Drone Technology
Justin Swartz, account executive at FLYMOTION, spoke about drones in the public safety industry and how agency leaders are deploying them:
“Drone technology is very new, and there have been a lot of questions as to how that integrates into public safety. Samsung is doing a great job of bringing that to fruition.”
Reducing Vehicle Footprint
Jerry Chang, director of product marketing at Safe Fleet, discussed how this year’s show focused on reducing the technology footprint in patrol cars with innovations like Samsung’s DeX in-vehicle solution, which replaces the bulky in-vehicle laptop with a Galaxy smartphone that connects to a touchscreen and keyboard.
“With IACP this year, one of the things we’re seeing is that when you have a lot of analytics, [as well as] reducing the footprint in cars,” Chang said, “[there is] a lot of focus on what we’re going to do with all of this new technology.”
Access to Actionable Information
As officers and departments get access to more and more information, focus is shifting from simply gathering information to deploying actionable insights. Jonathan Lewin, chief of the Bureau of Technical Services at Chicago Police Department, shared his thoughts on how his agency is managing multiple data streams.
“Departments have a lot of information. There’s a lot of video; there’s a lot of digital media. And we’re all trying to figure out what’s actionable from all of this information,” Lewin said. “There are some tools that are emerging that are starting to do that. We’re starting to measure which police intervention strategies tend to have the greatest impact on reducing crime, so that we can then optimize those strategies.”
With machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), these tools can learn what becomes more efficient and effective over time, leading to more informed agencies and safer communities.
IACP 2019 indicated where the industry sits when it comes to embracing the latest technology. Stay tuned to Insights to see how these trends develop and change in the year to come.
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