Police Officers, Detectives & Investigators
Make great notes, save time, and collect the evidence you need!
Forensic Notes: a powerful note-taking & digital evidence collection tool built for Law Enforcement!
Transparency - Accountability - Trust
Empower Your Officers
Are officers using their Personal cellphones to document police incidents against the recommendations of your department?
It’s time to help officers who simply want to be more efficient and use the powerful documenting technology they all possess in their cellphone!
Allow officers within your department to write court-ready electronic notes on their personal or department issued cellphones to increase efficiency and ensure notes of essential facts are taken.
With Forensic Notes those essential notes are easy to share with investigators, are never lost or misplaced, and a secured with industry standards of encryption.
Forensic Notes is revolutionizing how police officers document and manage investigations. With Forensic Notes, patrol officers and detectives alike can create investigative notes, track exhibits, document requests for digital forensic or cyber assistance, and obtain digital evidence from witnesses.
And all of this is accessible simply from their Phone.
Easy to produce ‘Court-Ready’ notes that are digitally signed, timestamped and court verifiable.
What is Court Ready?
Courts require that investigators provide contemporaneous notes which clearly show all aspects of their investigation.
Back when pen & paper was the norm, alterations to notes were expect to be observable, and simply removing notes unacceptable.
But as officers move to electronic notes, it has become easy to modify and delete norms at any moment, throwing their reliability and contemporaneous in to question.
Forensic Notes mimics those vital elements in traditional paper-bound notebooks, ensuring dates & times notes were created are tracked, as well as any modifications made at later dates.
Notes are automatically PDF’d, making disclosure & vetting simple.
Investigation Rise & Fall on Documentation
Well documented investigations are critical, because these days, even a police officer’s sworn testimony is not enough.
More than ever, officer actions are questioned and debated, so the courts are increasingly expecting detailed contemporaneous notes to document and justify police actions.
Failure to keep detailed notes can be viewed as neglect of duty.
But even when notes are diligently taken, questions around their authenticity and when they were written can be put forward by defense lawyers.
If defense lawyers can cast doubt on whether notes were contemporaneously written, the officer’s credibility can be diminished.
Forensics Notes was specifically designed to address the issues now facing officers, and the issues arising around the use of electronic documentation.
Forensic Notes simplifies the process of keeping detailed notes, while at the same time, ensuring the electronic notes remain admissible and reliable in the court room.
Forensic Notes are different from regular electronic documentation, as they are encrypted, immutable, and timestamped notes, whose integrity can be verified at any time. The process of verifying notes is incredibly simple, and can be completed by the officer, the prosecution or by defense.
Forensic Notes also allows digital files created with other systems to receive the same immutability and timestamping features.
Add any type of electronic file, including images, videos, audio recordings or documents to your Forensic Notes, and you can show those files were never altered or changed since the time they were added.
No payment information required.
Forensic Witness
Obtain videos and pictures from Witnesses Quickly Easily Effortlessly
without taking possession or seizing the witnesses phone!
Getting Evidence off Phones
Modern police departments are struggling to find an effective way to obtain videos and images recorded by witnesses at a scene.
Witnesses are often reluctant to give up their cellphone to police due to:
- Inconvenience about being without phone for any period of time.
- Concern police will view unrelated content. on their phone.
- Distrust of police in general.
As a result, many witnesses will downplay or deny that they have obtained evidence with their phone.
This results in police missing crucial evidence, increasing the cost of the investigation, or worse, resulting in insufficient evidence to proceed with charges.
Digital Forensics Units
If someone does provide their phone to police – issues still exist.
Digital Forensics Units are overworked and generally off-shift during incidents that occur in the evenings and during the night.
As a result, some departments have implemented mobile kiosks so that patrol members can download files from witness devices. However, this still means that the witness has to give up possession of their cellphone and requires officers to be trained on sophisticated forensic software.
Forensic Witness Solves these Issues
Forensic Witness allows the witness to keep possession of their cellphone at all times and choose to share only relevant files with the police.
On the officer’s smartphone or MDT running Forensic Witness, the officer enters basic witness information, including a cellphone number or email address, and then sends the request to the witness.
The witness then receives a text message or email with a link that allows them to upload the media files in a forensically sound manner.
Once files are uploaded, Forensic Witness creates a report for Crown and a separate report for Defense with all Private Identifiable Information (PII) removed.
This saves time and resources while ensuring proper and efficient disclosure.
Forensic Witness is available as part of a Forensic Notes subscription or separately to departments.
Sending Request to Witness from a Police Officer’s Phone
Don't Leave Key Evidence at the Scene
Witnesses are quick to pull out their cellphone and capture evidence before, during or after a major incident…
Most are not willing to hand over their smartphone to an investigator to obtain the electronic evidence forensically.
Open-Source Investigations (OSINT)
Using the internet is becoming an essential part of policing investigations. Increasingly the courts are ruling that these investigations must adhere to the same high-standards as ‘off-line investigations’.
In Canada: as a result of R v Hamdan (Terrorism case : Supreme Court of British Columbia) criticizing police practices for how they gathered online digital evidence, many police organizations are now using Hunchly (web-capturing software) for all OSINT investigations to ensure proper court-ready captures of on-line information.
Forensic Notes works side-by-side with Hunchly, allowing officers and analysts to ensure they properly document all aspects of the investigation to the same standard as they capture online evidence.
Investigating involving Social Media require excellent notes.