Keeping It Simple with Devices and Law Enforcement

Among the many operational headaches that law enforcement has to deal with has been the question of private information and public information – particularly when it comes to devices. Usually, law enforcement departments have dealt with it by issuing separate devices to officers for work-related purposes. That way, officers don’t use their personal phones for any work-related messaging, evidence photos, or private documents, freeing them up from having to hand over their entire personal device to meet any open record requirements. But here’s the problem: issuing devices to each officer is expensive and can quickly become a security risk. Law enforcement departments should be able to turn to technologies that ensure that private and public information remains separate and doesn’t require separate devices. Here’s what that would look like:

It’s One Device – But the Private and the Public Never Interact

While issuing two devices may solve the problem of keeping public and private information separate and officers don’t have to worry that anyone from the department can access their personal messages to friends and family alongside work messages, it introduces a whole slew of new problems. It’s expensive and there’s the risk that officers could misplace a device or that it gets stolen, which is a huge security liability. The right technology allows officers to communicate from their personal devices – but all of that information never, in any way, interacts with any other information on their device. All that information automatically expires from their device after a set period of time and can be easily wiped if a device is stolen. Meanwhile, everything still meets compliance and open records needs because it’s all automatically archived to a safe site. So, if that information needs to be shared, the department can easily share it and nobody has to hand over their phone.

It’s a Tool that Officers Will Want to Use

But it’s not enough for a tool to address the issues of private versus public information on a personal device – officers have to want to use it. That means it has to be easy-to-use and should make life easier for officers. Imagine it as almost a second device – if a second device were an app. Every single aspect of work occurs through the app – from phone calls, to video chats, to messages, to document sharing, to capturing evidence photos. It even does things that a second device wouldn’t do – like centralizing all office contacts on the app, so that officers don’t have to manually add new colleagues by phone numbers– their user ideas are added by an admin and immediately shared with everyone. Meanwhile, officers don’t have to worry about their privacy being violated because nothing from the device, not even metadata, is harvested. The app makes it easy for officers to conduct work from personal devices, stay compliant and not have to worry about their privacy.

The Right Tool Understands Law Enforcement Needs

The upshot is that not just any private communications technology meets law enforcement needs – it has to be one that specifically understands what law enforcement’s challenges are and what officers need to adopt the tool. That’s Vaporstream. We take the time to talk to and understand law department chief and officers’ needs and make sure our platform meets those requirements. Everything we described above? That’s Vaporstream. Find out more about how we can help you with the resources below.