Police embrace mobile-working revolution

August 11, 2017

Police in South Yorkshire can spend less time in the station and more time on the beat with new technology that lets them do paperwork on their mobile phone.

Over 600 of the force’s officers are to be given a BlackBerry handset, provided by Vodafone, giving them direct access to data on the Police National Computer.

Police officers can use the BlackBerry to access police records and complete forms such as the ‘Stop and Account’, where an officer stops the member of the public to question them on their behaviour.

“We have been looking at ways to streamline the way we work, as our processes are either paper based or rely on IT systems, only accessible in the station,” said Sergeant Simon Davies, of the South Yorkshire Police force.

“Enabling our officers to access key information on the move is a major step forward and we’re expecting to see the community benefit from a more visible force continually patrolling the neighbourhoods.”

Davies added the public should not be concerned about data protection should the devices be lost or stolen.

“Should the device be lost or stolen it is automatically locked and password protected within 15 minutes,” he said.

“Once it has been reported missing the IT department are able to remotely ‘kill’ the device to prevent abuse or breach of data.”