Cumbria Constabulary Transforms Digital Policing For Frontline Officers and IT Operations Using Absolute Secure Access
The Cumbria Constabulary is the territorial police force in England covering Cumbria. The force serves more than 500,000 residents and needs resilient network connectivity to support its officers and emergency response efforts. Technology can drive efficiency and empower organizations. The Cumbria Constabulary stands as proof of that. The police force serves the UK’s third-largest ceremonial county by area. Home to more than half a million residents, Cumbria also hosts some of the country’s largest national parks. The sheer size of the region means the police force must rely heavily on technology and cellular networks to ensure a rapid incident response.
Seamless, Reliable Connectivity for Frontline Officers
All mobile technology deployed to the officers must meet three important criteria: usability—tech must be easy to use without complicated logins; accessibility—anything a user can do at their desk should be available on any device from anywhere; and most importantly, connectivity— remote users must have seamless, secure, reliable access to the Internet, internal resources, and each other.
Absolute Secure Access is a key part of our mobility solutions. Without that stable and reliable connection, the rest is worthless.
How They Did It
Meeting the Technological Demands of a Modern Police Force
To meet these challenges, the Cumbria Constabulary has sought to place itself at the forefront of digital policing in the UK. Since 2016, the constabulary has been implementing the National Enabling Programme’s (NEP) technical infrastructure. The NEP strategy is a nationally assured and designed set of tools available to police forces across Britain. To date, the police force has implemented many successful IT initiatives, including digital evidence solutions, the adoption of Microsoft 365, several device rollouts with Absolute Secure Access and Microsoft Intune®, and most recently, the implementation of a business continuity plan and COVID-19 response effort made possible by the Absolute Secure Access remote access solution.
Improving Communication and Collaboration
Other benefits that the Cumbria Constabulary sees from their digital transformation are improved communication and collaboration through video conferencing using Microsoft Teams® and document sharing in Microsoft OneNote®. Daily operations have also improved. For example, the police force now has the ability to update incident logs in real time. Offender photos are immediately added to any incident log, making the images instantly available to all the deployed officers and tactical advisors.
We needed to do things differently, so having access to internal core systems via handheld devices was critical. It means having real-time, up-to-date information available to the officers to inform their decision-making on the ground.
Paving the Way for a Zero Trust Strategy
In addition to having a more resilient network due to optimized connectivity, Absolute Secure Access is a key part of the Cumbria Constabulary’s agile IT strategy to adopt Zero Trust and secure remote access. As a result, the police force is now able to implement new ideas and technologies that are making policing better for both frontline officers and IT teams.
For Cumbria Constabulary, Absolute Secure Access:
- Improves daily operations and productivity for the police force
- Provides stable and reliable connectivity, no matter where the user is
- Helps transform the police force's digital policing strategy to meet technological demands
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