It is difficult to assess the impact of the last two decades’ advancements in consumer technology without resorting to hyperbole or cliches. From the law enforcement perspective, such grand pronouncements are moot in any case. Fundamentally, law enforcement deals with the facts on the ground, and those facts position technology squarely at the center of modern policing: The future of law enforcement is increasingly and inextricably bound to its use of technology.
Spokeo’s in-house experts have identified four technology-driven trends that will help shape the future of policing, and which LEAs of all sizes should be contemplating in 2025. Here’s what you need to know.
1. Increased Reliance on AI for Investigations
The various technologies grouped together under the label of “AI” take different approaches to handling data. One is machine learning, which trains algorithms on large volumes of data in order to teach them how to detect meaningful patterns. AI products based on machine learning excel at automating data analysis, identifying behavioral patterns in data, and cross-referencing huge datasets in search of correlations. These capabilities all hold tremendous potential for investigative use.
For law enforcement agencies large and small, the use of AI can sharply reduce workloads for both investigators and support staff. More importantly, the tasks it automates are the time-consuming drudge work of investigation, freeing up human assets for more complex and high-value activities and reducing case resolution time. Some forces are already using generative AI tools to write reports and probable-cause statements, for example.
In this case, the very factor that makes human-led investigations so challenging – the vast seas of information now becoming accessible to law enforcement – is not only addressed by AI, but provides a wealth of additional data the AI tool can learn from. To phrase it simply, the more a well-crafted AI investigative tool is used, the better it becomes at its job.
How Spokeo for Business Together with AI Can Assist
Any AI tool is only as good as the data it’s given to work on. Spokeo for Business provides data in something approaching real-time, with updates occurring much more frequently than those from most legacy data providers. This is especially pertinent given the strength of Spokeo’s social media data (see next trend). Prompting AI tools with up-to-date data from Spokeo can sharply increase their effectiveness, enabling investigators to identify and locate individuals quickly and accurately.
2. The Expansion of Social Media as a Primary Investigative Tool
The public records that underpin the data in many law enforcement databases, as well as legacy third-party data providers, are updated infrequently and only on an as-needed basis. Social media presents an entirely different environment, with active users posting on their accounts weekly, daily, or even several times in any given hour.
This positions social platforms as a key source of data (Social Media Intelligence, or SOCMINT) for investigative purposes. In posting to their feeds, individuals self-report information that can help investigators track their movements, relationships, activities, affiliations, and personal connections. Public records provide just the bare facts of an individual’s life, while social media gives a more complete, complex, and nuanced view of them as people. This, in turn, can be crucial when attempting to find missing persons, respond to developing situations, locate witnesses, or identify and predict potential future actions a suspect or person of interest might take.
How Spokeo Can Assist
Spokeo for Business integrates public data from over 120 social platforms, linking individual users to phone numbers, email addresses, and other potentially identifiable data points even when those accounts are anonymized or pseudonymized.
Those hidden connections can be used to locate persons of interest and uncover previously hidden connections, offering a fuller overview of their digital footprint. This can be especially useful in time-sensitive cases, or as a tool to uncover leads which can then be pursued through conventional channels to generate search warrants or subpoenas.
3. Real-Time Crime Centers: Enhancing Law Enforcement Operations
It’s been almost two decades since the first real-time crime center (RTCC) was established in New York City. That pioneering effort cost $11 million and operated 24/7 with a staff of 40 and a two-story video wall. In the ensuing years, the concept has spread steadily from major cities to smaller centers. Improved technology has made it possible for LEAs even in areas of modest population to spin up a functioning RTCC.
In brief, an RTCC acts as a central hub where data sources including cameras, license plate readers, and other sensors such as gunshot detectors can be monitored and used to…
- Proactively detect, predict, and defuse criminal or potentially violent activity; or
- React in something approaching real-time to incidents as they occur.
A full-length discussion of the logistics of setting up an RTCC is beyond the scope of this article, though the Bureau of Justice Assistance has published a useful guide for LEAs that wish to establish one.
How Spokeo Can Assist
Timeliness is fundamental to the operation of RTCCs. The inflow of data from cameras, other automated sensors, and social media feeds is useful in direct proportion to the LEA’s ability to cross-reference that data in real-time with individuals. Spokeo’s deep intelligence provides contact information, address history, social media handles, and relational data (friends, family, known associates) in real-time for persons of interest, witnesses, and victims, providing field officers with the fullest possible understanding of what they’ll face on arrival at the scene. This additional layer of data can be crucial, especially when warrants are quickly obtained to access social media profiles in cases when suspects may be live-streaming their activities.
4. Expansion of Cross-Agency Collaboration via Data-Sharing Platforms
While local violence and property crime remain bread-and-butter issues for most law enforcement agencies, criminal activities are often uncoupled from geography. Members of your community may – for example – fall victim to social media scams, online cyberstalking or identity theft, or the multi-jurisdictional activities of organized crime and human trafficking rings.
Individual LEAs frequently cooperate with their peers in neighboring jurisdictions on an ad hoc basis, but modern policing mandates more formal, structured collaboration and data sharing on a peer-to-peer and interagency basis. The benefits flow in both directions:
- Granular street-level data from local LEAs can help state and federal agencies build cases against criminals operating across jurisdictions; and,
- Data flowing from those larger agencies can help local LEAs differentiate between local and organized criminal activities, or resolve online cases affecting local citizens.
How Spokeo Can Assist
Spokeo’s speed, power, and ease of use extend to data sharing. When a partner agency is also a Spokeo for Business user, information sharing can take place quickly, seamlessly, and securely by sharing an individual’s data with another user in the form of a URL. When the other agency is not a current Spokeo client, the data can be sent in PDF form through a secure communications channel.
The Future of Law Enforcement is Already Here
A widely quoted aphorism in tech circles is that “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” This is decidedly true of the trends we’ve identified here. Each of these technologies – or more accurately, each of these applications of technology to modern policing – is already in use in some jurisdictions, but is poised in 2025 to spread more broadly.
That process will include discussions and evaluations of which tools and technologies can be cost-effectively secured, deployed, and incorporated into existing administrative and investigative workflows. Some otherwise promising technologies, for example, are inaccessible to smaller or resource-constrained LEAs because of their cost or the IT resources required for their implementation.
Spokeo for Business, in contrast, can be deployed easily and offers subscription plans suitable for LEAs of all sizes and budgets, with onboarding assistance and 24/7 support from dedicated, US-based staff. For additional information on the product’s capabilities, to arrange a demo, or to set up a no-cost trial of the product, reach out to our team using the contact information found on our Law Enforcement page.
Sources
IBM: What is Machine Learning?
The Associated Press: Police Officers are Beginning to Use AI Chatbots to Write Crime Reports. Will They Hold Up in Court?
New York City Global Partners: Best Practice: Real Time Crime Center: Centralized Crime Data System
Police Mag: How Technology Powers Real Time Crime CentersBureau of Justice Assistance: The Mission of a Real Time Crime Center