Rimage Provides an Outstanding Automation Solution
We were highly impressed from the get-go with Rimage’s outstanding support during the system conceptualization and installation phases.”
Customer
LKA Hamburg Police
Challenge
Eliminate manual tasks associated with analyzing and reviewing digital evidence
Solution
Rimage Evidence Disc System (EDS)
The age of IT has brought about expansive changes in the hunt for criminal evidence. Today’s suspicious activities and criminal evidence are often digital in nature, which means that files, computers, surveillance tapes, and other digital elements need to be exhaustively investigated by police departments.
This evidence evolution prompted Thomas Schwarze, head of the LKA 39 / Forensic Information and Communication Technology Division of the Hamburg Police, to purchase a Rimage solution. Now the tasks associated with analyzing and reviewing mass amounts of digital evidence are automated, drastically reducing processing time and freeing department staff to focus on more critical tasks.
“We were highly impressed from the get-go with Rimage’s outstanding support during the system conceptualization and installation phases.”
Thomas Schwarze, LKA Hamburg
The Challenge
Tax evasion, white-collar crime, cyber-fraud, product piracy, and child pornography are just some of the types of criminal activities that leave behind an ever growing digital trail of evidence. Countless CDs, PCs, servers, and other storage media continuously enter police departments. Sifting through often mammoth amounts of data is a major challenge for police departments. Hunting down digital evidence on mobile devices, surveillance tapes, control systems, entire data centers or networks costs officials untold amounts of time and effort.
For the LKA 39 Division of the Hamburg Police, the globalization of data storage and the spread of digital technology exponentially increased the amount of disc-based evidence the department needed to sift through—a task that is mission impossible if done manually. The division needed to find a solution that could enhance productivity and improve workflow.
The Solution
Mr. Schwarze found the department’s solution in the Rimage Evidence Disc System™ (EDS). Developed in cooperation with leading forensic companies, the EDS combines professional-grade robotics with feature-rich software to automate the extraction, disc imaging, and content reporting for disc-based evidence, enabling numerous police forensic departments around the globe to drastically change conventional investigations processes. According to Mr. Schwarze, the Hamburg Police opted for the EDS due to its outstanding function range, proven quality, and excellent value.
The EDS can ingest collected CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs™ and report on the found evidence including hash values, turning time-consuming tasks into one overnight process. Investigators review the reports and can take further action as necessary. Evidence can be exported to disc for distribution and used to support prosecution.
The Results
Successful Automation
Automation is at the core of the EDS solution, which means that the Hamburg Police department no longer needs to endure the labor-intensive process of manually reviewing and investigating the hundreds or even thousands of CDs, DVDs, and BDs brought in by child pornography investigations.
One of the prime advantages of the Rimage solution is the Evidence Disc Software, which enhances the EDS system’s automation with a powerful, intuitive, and eminently user-friendly graphic interface. The Evidence Disc Software provides outstanding precision for reading and analyzing hard-to-read or damaged discs—even those with missing or low quality disc sectors—improving accuracy and allowing more hard evidence to be collected against criminal suspects.
The time savings provided by the solution are second to none. For cases with a 200-disc load, studies have shown that the Rimage EDS can reduce the amount of time it takes to process disc-based investigations by 80%. In addition, the EDS features include automatic importing, publishing and archiving of digital evidence, allowing for optimized workflows and heightened productivity.
Data Stands Up In Court
One of the most crucial aspects of processing discs is finding evidence that will stand up in a court of law. To this end, the Rimage solution provides superior reliability. The EDS enables users to generate pictures of processed discs, permanently connecting the extracted content to the found evidence. Rimage’s thermal-retransfer print technology—included with the EDS solution—prints the images and case-related content directly to the disc surface to increase traceability, and discs created with the EDS easily travel throughout the chain of custody for the life of the case.
The Rimage automation solution has done wonders for the Hamburg Police department’s data assessment process. The EDS solution not only expedites the search for evidence that will stand up in court, but it gives valuable time back to human resources for other, more crucial tasks.
As Mr. Schwarze says, “Thanks to the new EDS automation solution from Rimage, we’re now able to read hundreds of data discs a day, without having a staff member do this task full time.”
“The quality of the product is simply outstanding. The support from Rimage concerning technical matters and other particularities was likewise superb.”
Thomas Schwarze, LKA Hamburg