Digitizing Documents For Increased Security
How a paperless solution streamlined and helped secure one police department’s workflow
- By Mike O’Leary
- Feb 01, 2012
Anyone involved in law enforcement knows how crucial secure
document management is to efficiency across all departments.
Constantly growing volumes of unorganized court records, witness
statements and identification documents can overrun even
the largest storerooms, increasing the risk of security problems
and slowing access to important files. Inefficient and unsafe
document management shouldn’t hinder any step of the law enforcement process.
Recently, one mid-sized police department grew weary of the security gaps
and lack of efficiency its own physical records provided. The employees were
frustrated that content was hard to find and easily overlooked. They were concerned
that important decisions were being made without full knowledge of the
facts. Officers were worried about the overall safety of the paper files and the possibility that those files might be misplaced or fall
into the wrong hands.
The police force had been operating under a “print
to file” mentality that was embedded within the organization.
The records spanned nearly 40 unorganized
feet of shelf space, including a separate building
across the county that often had to be accessed
for documents. A sizable portion of the archives had
been unnecessarily printed for wet signature and then
filed along with other hard copy documents, most of
which were in direct relation to criminal justice files.
To have these vital documents stored in an unorganized
fashion was unacceptable to the department’s
dedication to security.
The police department decided to organize a focus
group to form a solution and determine by what percentage
its physical records could be reduced. Several
subject matter experts and key users within the force
were organized and instructed to bring samples of
common files from their unit’s archives. The department
sampled the records and applied the criteria for
destruction or holding for each category it had previously
agreed upon. It determined it was possible
to eliminate 60 to 70 percent of the paper held in its
storerooms.
Digitizing Documents
After reviewing a range of potential solutions, the
force decided to implement a one-month trial of EzeScan,
an Ambir Technology solution to batch scanning
and document management. During the trial,
officers would begin to upload case files and other
important documents to HP TRIM, the department’s
electronic document record management solution
(EDRMS). EzeScan is compatible with many commonly
used backend storage systems, which eliminates
the need for many organizations to start from
scratch with a new EDRMS.
Digitizing an entire archive’s worth of documents
would be a daunting task for any organization, but
this case was made even more overwhelming by the
department’s previous negative experience with scanning.
In past attempts to outsource its digitization, the
results were disappointing. The employees to whom
the files mattered most discovered myriad problems,
including:
- Records were sent off-site, so they had no way to
track what had or had not been scanned;
- Records were often misfiled with disparate documents
when they were returned to the department;
- Image quality of the scans was poor, and original
records still had to be referenced.
These problems left many employees wary of digitizing
records and hesitant to repeat the seemingly
frustrating process. But the security risks involved
with loose paper documents, along with the increasingly
bloated shelves that housed them, soon outweighed
those worries.
One pioneering department within the organization
began to upload case files to its backend storage
system using EzeScan. This allowed other departments
to see just how simple the process was. With the
system, the storage parameters can be easily set with
an intuitive interface, eliminating the need for costly
on-site installation technicians other batch scanning
solutions require. Complex scripting was replaced
with simple dropdown menus. And the operator was
required to learn only a few basic commands. In
short, a tailor-made solution was created specifically
for the department, by the department.
As an integrated program, EzeScan lets users build
answers to their document management challenges
from the ground up. More specifically, users pay only
for the modules that specifically help them. There also
aren’t any bothersome click charge fees associated
with EzeScan; such fees actually require payment for
each document scanned.
Dispelling Loose-leaf Disorder
During scanning at the police department, multiple
metadata fields—which govern how the documents
are stored within the EDRMS—were applied simultaneously
during uploading. Documents were categorized
by form classification via barcodes. Blank pages
were deleted automatically and separator pages were
inserted where needed. Optical character recognition
(OCR) functionality allowed for text-searchable PDF
creation and the indexing of documents for keyword
search. With OCR, authorized users can search for
and access documents by words and terms contained
within documents but not specified in metadata.
Scans emerged crisp, easy-to-read and organized
to the exact parameters the police force had set. For
authorized users, the documents were easy to find via
search or barcode. It was refreshing for the department
to realize it would now be able to make important
decisions with all of the pertinent information.
And perhaps most importantly, the danger involved
with storing important physical records was virtually
eliminated. Besides the streamlining to the retrieval
process and increased security, the records storeroom
was also transformed. The endlessly stacked boxes
and loose-leaf disorder were replaced with clean
shelves and peace of mind.
This top-to-bottom usefulness also applied to
other areas of the police force, including support
areas such as the pensions department, which began
to convert paper records to digital files. In an area
like pensions, where constant upkeep of records is
crucial, the ability to append pages to digital records
becomes invaluable. Documents in the pensions department
also routinely need to be stored for two or
more years with minimal viewing, so keeping them
digitally reduces the chance of security problems and
unwanted clutter.
After the successful trial, two more units within
the department then installed EzeScan to digitize and
store their own documents. Because of the ease of
use and quick learning curve, one of the departments
even took on the responsibility of scanning the documents
of three other units. Following that, 22 additional
units within the department declared a business
requirement for scanning and electronic document records
management as a direct result of the trial. Their
reasons cited for implementing the system included:
- Storing records in paper format and retrieving
them later is costly, unreliable and unsustainable;
- Efficiency and confidence in security was better
achieved by transferring documents electronically
across the organization, rather than manually;
- Auditing, version control and tracking of documents
are routinely solved by digitizing through
EzeScan.
Following the adoption across the other departments,
the force’s crime unit also embraced the solution
for batch scanning. It too began digitally storing
case files previously held within the archives. With
buy-in from such a high-profile part of the organization,
many employees’ concerns about the need to
keep physical documents were quickly diminished.
The old inherent fear of disposing of hard copy records
“in case they’re needed” was put to rest, giving
other departments the confidence to sort through,
scan and dispose of hard records. They now knew that
once scanned, the documents could be tightly secured
against unauthorized viewing and easily retrieved by
the correct parties.
Efficient Dispatch
In the end, there has been widespread recognition of
the advantages of digitization of paper records in both
the operations and support functions within the police
department. Scanning records reduces the demand for
storage space, enables rapid retrieval and significantly
increases overall document security, given the fact that
the paper records can be immediately destroyed after
digitization. The police force retains complete control
of the records and is able to view and make use of the
content of the records on demand.
As far as concerns the department had regarding
scanning—including organizational difficulties and
lack of control—those were replaced with a simplified
interface and easy quality assurance, which include
the ability to rotate, crop, delete, append or
insert pages. Because EzeScan is easily installed with
no need for scripting, contains no click charges and is
compatible with many storage databases,
it puts users in control to best
manage their important documents
safely and efficiently.
This article originally appeared in the February 2012 issue of Security Today.