You’ve seen digital CCTV – are you ready for digital pens?!
Five Thames Valley Police officers in Milton Keynes are trialling digital pens and digital paper in an effort to see how they can be used to reduce bureaucracy and paperwork.
The pens were issued to the officers to see how they stand up to the rough and tumble of police work, with the aim of developing digital versions of forms to reduce bureaucracy and administration and also to improve the quality and accuracy of data stored by the force.
What they say
Keith Gough, project manager in charge of the trial, said: “We have been working with the supplier magicomm to develop electronic versions of the forms officers use most frequently when they are out of the street such as the stop and search forms. These pens can send the information securely straight back to computers in the station allowing the officers to continue their patrol without the need to return to the station and start entering the data on to computers. It also means that the data entered is more likely to be right first time. The officers trialling these devices have been very enthusiastic about them.”
Bluetooth phone
“As well as an ink nib the pen has a digital camera which takes snap shots of what is being written and sends them back securely to computers in the station via a Bluetooth phone. Or the contents of the memory can be downloaded when the officer returns. The memory can store several written pages before being full.”
