Imagine waking up one morning and discovering that all the files and systems on your PC are locked. A message flashes on the screen: You must pay money to regain access. You will most likely have to pay in cryptocurrency, which is difficult to track. This is what is called a ransomware virus. The police have many such cases on the table. Finding out who is behind it and how they got in takes time. It simply steals capacity from other cases awaiting investigation. This is just one of many examples of what technology is doing to the Police. But… what do the Police do with technology? The picture is from last year and shows police officers at a hotel in Bergen after a murder there. Photo: Silje Rognsvåg / news Criminals better than police Technology is accelerating, and criminals are quick to exploit it. The police, on the other hand, do not keep up as well. Last year, they received criticism from the National Audit Office for being too slow with digitalisation. – The consequence is that citizens have less security and a worse fight against crime, says the report. IT director in the Police, Catherine Janson, says bluntly that criminals today are better at technology than the police. She explains that the police have to follow many laws, while criminals break them. For criminals, the effort is small, but the money is big. – The large financial gain means that they can acquire and use technology at a pace that we do not have, she says. This is an illustration image. Photo: Thomas Winje Øijord / Scanpix – Like an old car The core systems of the Police are old and vulnerable. Janson compares them to an old car. – We can change tyres, repair the axles, but we have to service more and more often, and we use more and more capacity to drive the car, she says. One of the systems the police rely on (the PO system) is 31 years old. This system is important for police officers to keep track, respond to calls and send the right patrols. The PO system looks today as it did in the 1990s. The PO system was put into use in the Police in 1993. Photo: Sahara Muhaisen / news Associate Professor Jenny Maria Lundgaard at the Norwegian Police Academy has done fieldwork close to the PO system. She believes that such an old system is cumbersome to use and expensive to repair, because parts of the technology, such as licenses and the like, are outdated and expired. – It’s a bit like a mobile phone, only in a more serious way. If the system is not updated, then the new app that we want to install may not work. She believes the challenge in modernizing the Police’s computer systems is that the many systems are often dependent on each other. A system may suddenly need other systems to function. – You can think of using a simple drone that flies, but suddenly you need an additional app to receive and send images, explains Lundgaard. The picture is from 2023 and shows a search operation with drones. Photo: Hans L. Andreassen/news / news With artificial intelligence, expectations are increasing that the police must keep up with developments. If a person is found dead in a harbor basin, and the police have to find out whether it is an accident or a murder, they must today go through many processes from the time the incident is registered until they have an analysis. The systems don’t talk to each other, and that affects productivity in the police, says Catherine Janson. – We have to manually transport information from one solution to the other. This is something the machines should compile for us, so that we can focus on the analysis and not on compiling the data, she says. – In order for us to get better at technology, fairly large investments are required. And it doesn’t require one big investment, and then we’re done. Continuous investment is required, says Catherine Janson. Photo: Sahara Muhaisen / news Conflict over money The police receive funds every year, but Janson says that the money goes to a large extent to repair the old systems. They cannot afford to create new, modern systems. – Most of my budget goes to ensure stable operations. We always end up lagging behind to fix the old, she says. Even though the police are in the process of modernizing, Janson believes that it will take many years to see improvements if they continue at the same pace. – It may take over 30 years, maybe 35, before the police can raise their hand and say that we are now in a good digital place, she says. – We spend an awful lot of unnecessary time because we have to go through a number of different solutions to arrive at analyzes and results, says Catherine Janson. Photo: Sahara Muhaisen / news It is the Directorate of Police that allocates money to the Police. According to Politiforum, the Norwegian Police Directorate will now “scrutinize” the use of money by the IT unit and the Police’s technology work in general. This is partly because the IT unit said earlier this year that they needed 1.8 billion to ensure stable operations in 2024. Half a year later, the unit believed that they needed 120 man-years to maintain stable operations, according to Politiforum. To news, department director in the police directorate Roger Bjerke says that they call it an “external area review”. – We see that digitization in the Police is progressing slowly. There is little comprehensiveness, and it is non-binding. The plans lack funding, and this is due to conditions both outside and within the Police, he says. Published 14.09.2024, at 08.07
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Think criminals are better than the police at technology – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
