The police in North Rhine-Westphalia are getting a Mobile Data Acquisition and Analysis Laboratory (MODAL). The vehicle will enable the police to record and save data directly on site and feed it into the police network. "This is a real piece of high-tech and a further building block with which we are countering the digitalization and virtualization of crime," said Interior Minister Herbert Reul today at the presentation of the vehicle at the State Criminal Police Office.
In many cases of serious crime in particular, data analysis is now the key to successful investigations. After the police have seized evidence such as USB sticks, computers or cell phones, investigators normally evaluate the stored data at the police station. With the help of the new MODAL, some work processes can, in certain cases, be completed directly at the scene. "If necessary, the investigators can take a first look at the incriminating data directly on site. This can save valuable time, especially in cases of acute danger - for example in major child abuse proceedings. Time that the police don't have and, above all, that the victims don't have," says Reul.
The MODAL can also serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot and mobile data storage device. With this technology, witnesses on site can quickly and easily transmit images and videos from their smartphones to the police. This plays an important role in the event of attacks or major incidents. In such situations, it is often important to quickly record and evaluate information from the public.
In 2018, a regional police working group dealt with the question of how to improve the evaluation of IT assets on site. Employees from the "Cybercrime Competence Center" then came up with the idea of a vehicle that meets all the requirements for evaluating IT evidence. "The IT investigators have carefully selected every detail. So what we have here is something from police officers for police officers," said the minister.
The laboratory has three workstations, an air-suspended server cabinet for operation even while on the move and a data center with 100 terabytes of storage. The costs for the mobile laboratory total around 400,000 euros.