Systemic interoperability within and between law enforcement agencies is vital to address the large scale technical challenges inherent in combatting criminal network activity. Historically, law enforcement officers have mediated sense-making between disparate systems as part of investigative workflows. More recently, however it has become necessary to integrate systems to facilitate modern analytical approaches. Such interoperability needs to occur at many levels – from organisational workflow, to the highly technical – and encompasses data standards, technical interfaces, and management affordances.
This project involves investigating a meta-model approach for interoperability between a number of law enforcement systems. Such an approach does not require adherence to top-down standards or data schemas but, instead, involves mapping individual system data elements to a lightweight ontological model that facilitates sense-making between systems.
This work is proceeding via development and instantiation of a proof-of-concept prototype in partnership with law enforcement. It involves the gathering of multi-stakeholder organisational requirements and the development of design artefacts that may include data guidelines, a suitable meta-model and mapping, and the prototype itself.