West Midlands company Forensic Pathways and its industry partner Cambridgeshire Constabulary scooped the Orange Best Use of Technology in Business category at the National Business Awards held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London on Tuesday 10 November in the presence of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling.
Staffordshire-based Forensic Pathways (FPL) and Cambridgeshire Constabulary joined forces using FPL's Forensic Phone Analyser system to drastically increase and improve Cambridgeshire's ability to manage intelligence. This means criminals can be identified more quickly and linked together, saving time, cost and enhancing public safety. Like many police services Cambridgeshire invests a great deal of money in getting access to data, but making sense of this data until now has not always been simple, due to the sheer amount of data and the range of connections and possibilities within that data. Richard Leary, Managing Director, said, "Cambridgeshire Constabulary is to be commended for its commitment to reducing cost and improving efficiency, always with the eye on protecting both public safety and the taxpayer's purse strings."
Forensic Pathways' Phone Analyser allows the Police to make use of data from mobile phones and telecommunications networks. The system is able to manage billions of items of data and billions of items of associated data, helping investigators make sense of it and use it to identify and catch criminals. This technology is subject of an international patent application and is already coming to the attention of international police forces.
Forensic Pathways has invested heavily in the research and development of Forensic Phone Analyser to produce a unique intelligence tool, easily implemented and used by clients. The company has its own Research and Development Unit including a PhD programme which is funding three full time doctoral research programmes. One of these areas concerns making better use of telecommunications information to combat organised crime and terrorism.
Commenting on Forensic Pathways’ national recognition, Mike Musson ICT Cluster Manager at Advantage West Midlands said: “We applaud Forensic Pathways for its continued commitment to R&D, which is acting as a catalyst in the development of new technologies such as Phone Analyser. The West Midlands ICT Cluster is delighted the company has achieved national recognition for its work – Forensic Pathways is a leading innovator in the region, and Richard Leary is the chair of the region’s ICT Cluster Opportunity Group.
“Forensic Pathways is in good company here in the West Midlands, where we play host to a wealth of award-winning innovative ICT companies that are making their mark nationally and internationally. As the recent ICT Excellence Awards staged by the West Midlands ICT Cluster demonstrated, ICT businesses within the region are developing solutions that not only develop our ICT capability, but impact all elements of society – from healthcare, education, media, manufacturing, legal and security industries – so the impact we are having within the wider world should not be underestimated.”