What We're Reading: Police Tech and Tips for Vendors

In culling through hundreds of news stories every week, Techwire comes across some interesting reads that don't quite fit our template for a full story, but which might be of interest to our readers. Here are a few links that we thought were worth a click:

It’s well-known that time is the worst enemy of a crime investigation — witnesses forget details, and evidence gets lost or erodes. Forensic Logic, a Walnut Creek-based cloud software company that makes search and analysis tools for law enforcement, hopes to bring modern data science to bear on changing this. Recently, the company announced Coplink X, a software-as-a-service that combines Forensic Logic’s proprietary search-engine technology with Coplink, a data-analysis tool the company acquired in 2017, used by thousands of departments across the nation. The details can be found here.

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In other news involving Bay Area-based companies working on law enforcement-related projects, there’s this: Visual Labs is making a case for the potential of law enforcement officers’ smartphones to double as body cameras. The company is touting recent media coverage and new contracts in the wake of becoming certified in May by the First Responder Network Authority, an organization that oversees the designated broadband network for public-safety officials. Now part of the FirstNet App Catalog, Visual Labs’ app passed a stringent vetting process for security, relevancy, data privacy and scalability, and stores video on the Microsoft Azure GovCloud. Visual Labs Chief Operating Officer Alexander Popof told Government Technology that the app is hardware- and carrier-agnostic, is compatible with any smartphone that uses Google’s Android operating system, and eliminates the need for body camera docking stations. 

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When a veteran chief information security officer writes a public essay called “10 Rules for Vendors,” one might call that a public service for the IT community. Gary Hayslip, a longtime CISO in the private sector who’s also served as a leader in industry groups, wrote that essay in 2017. Now, he’s updated it. Have a look at the retooled, updated piece, “CISO Manifesto: Rules We Wish Vendors Would Follow.”

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What’s life like for a student assistant working for the IT agency in the biggest state in the nation? Vishal Kesh tells all in a post on the Tech Blog of the California Department of Technology:

“At CDT, I have had the opportunity to work with several internal departments and learned first-hand how the organization’s (approximately) 1,000 employees interact as a team. Currently, I am adding support to CDT’s Department of Broadband and Digital Literacy by assisting on its Tribal and Surplus Equipment task forces, as well as with CDT’s vendor relations.”

Kesh adds: “Since I began in December 2018, I have been able to leverage my educational and networking skills to assist staff on many different projects. I would describe my time at CDT as being part of a large network splayed out like a spider’s web, where every department in California and its employees are connected for the purpose of improving the lives of its citizens.