From the privileged and sometimes disturbing vantage point I have as the Chief Product Officer at Siren I get to see first hand how fast the criminal landscape is evolving for all and any type of crime you can imagine. As our Chairman Bob Griffin says “the promise of technology is that it can move faster than the speed of threat”. The evolution of technology, and specifically AI, has dramatically increased the pace and complexity of criminal activities.
Cyber attacks, digital IP and online child exploitation are just a few offences that can occur within moments, and across international borders, causing widespread damage before traditional methods can respond. AI-powered tools enable criminals to automate and escalate attacks, making swift detection and counteraction paramount for law enforcement to stop the bleeding. In addition, with GenAI poised to generate 10% of the world’s data by 2025, finding evidence of these crimes and connecting across different sources of data is becoming increasingly difficult and time consuming for investigators.
“The promise of technology is that it can move faster than the speed of threat”. – Bob Griffin, Siren Chairman
This ongoing challenge is at the forefront of our Product Development strategy and I’m very excited to present Siren 14.2 in this blog. It’s allowing our customers to leverage automation to not only speed up their investigations but also connect previously unrelated data, revealing hidden intelligence that would never have otherwise been found.
As with the entire 14 series, Siren 14.2 goes beyond routine enhancements. Siren now takes the analyst from identifying a single lead to ensuring that all relevant connections and relationships are correctly mapped out and shared across teams, removing a lot of unnecessary friction along the way.
From a single lead, automatically create an investigation
By simplifying the transition from search to investigation, Siren 14.2 enables investigators to respond quickly. From a single search result, Siren can now automate the creation of a full graph investigation, ensuring that all relevant connections and relationships are correctly mapped. This overview is crucial in understanding the broader context of criminal activities. The beauty of 14.2 is how it takes a leadership role on behalf of the analyst or investigator by using automation and maximising the intelligence available across the datasets and so does not rely on the intuition of the user. This not only increases the scope of evidence and the precision of an investigation, but also optimizes the productivity of the team. It can surface untapped intelligence that would never have otherwise been found. This not only maximises the scope of evidence and increases the precision in an investigation but it also increases the productivity and efficiency of the whole team.
Check out the video below to see how this actually works.
Additionally, with a single click, it is now possible to automatically download a Siren knowledge graph into a draft written report.
Law Enforcement
There’s nowhere more in need of fast collaboration tools than law enforcement. Siren 14.2 release means officers can find a lead, say a suspicious licence plate, and instantly launch a full investigation with Siren automatically connecting to any data sets, internal or external that are available. See who owns the vehicle and all past locations (ALPR) of vehicles registered to that individual. Simultaneously browse a lead’s entire incident history, including previous offences and arrest records. With everything in one place, officers can quickly assess the situation.
Share your intelligence products across the organization and provide official evidence
The true challenge in any investigation lies deep in the details and presenting links in a meaningful way as evidence. Siren 14.2 allows analysts to create more intuitive and visually appealing investigation products that are ready for dissemination, be it through a direct link or downloadable report and that can be used internally and to facilitate prosecution. This promotes more collaboration, causes less friction than the current process, leaves less room for miscommunication and in turn creates further efficiencies across different teams and agencies.
Secure and facilitated collaboration workflow
Siren 14.2 introduces a facilitated collaboration workflow that caters to the diverse needs of investigative teams. Users now have the option to work in separate private and shared spaces. This separation ensures that individual investigators can work on sensitive aspects of an investigation privately, while still being able to collaborate with colleagues when necessary. The new ability to share the investigation across teams removes unnecessary friction and promotes further efficiencies.
Maintaining data integrity and security is paramount in law enforcement investigations. The new workflow in Siren 14.2 ensures that data is handled securely, with access controls and audit trails to protect sensitive information. By enhancing the collaboration workflow, Siren 14.2 supports more effective teamwork.
As I lay out at the start of this blog, automation truly is essential for investigators to ensure robust defences, not only online, but anywhere technology aids a crime. Increasing crime volume and complexity, the need for speed in response, scalability for larger and larger amounts of data to sift through all call for the augmentation of existing capabilities.
If I haven’t quite managed to convince you that automation has become an essential weapon in your arsenal, I hope you will agree that staying up to date with technology will be instrumental in keeping people assets and networks safe.
