Chirange is a new secure mobile software application designed for law enforcement agencies intended to be a complimentary tool working alongside existing police radios. Chirange can provide police officers, detectives and specialist teams operating in the field with a compact visual communications system, that allows authorised personnel to receive instant intelligence briefings and urgent photo alerts.

For example, a CCTV photo image of a terrorist suspect can be instantly transmitted to every officer on patrol with additional personal details displayed for accurate identification of criminals or suspects. Police can also use Chirange to search central or local databases, complete digital e-forms without the need to return to the station, search training/reference material and use comprehensive GPS tracking features.

The Chirange software can be easily customised to each police customer’s own requirements with specific e-forms and mapped links to data sources, so ensuring Chirange fits into their existing business practises.

A major advantage in reducing hardware costs to customers is the ability to use existing off the shelf PDA/Smartphone devices and any cellular communications carrier, as we apply an encrypted security layer so allowing Chirange to be used without the need for any additions to the existing communications systems.

Main Features of Chirange 1.0 Software (Chirange 2.0 in development)

• Intelligent e-forms
• Training Information and Reference Library
• Search
• Briefing
• Alert
• Audit Trail

Intelligent e-forms

Features customisable intelligent forms that can be completed on the handheld device and then immediately have the data saved to a central database, screen fields have strict validation rules and are designed to assist police officers to complete forms quickly and accurately, drop down selections and clear navigation allow for most basic information to be entered whilst working in the field. Though officers can enter details on e-forms in the field, they can retrieve the e-form with populated data from any secure PC located on the network at any time and the whole process has a comprehensive and secure audit trail.

Some e-forms examples: IRB, PSD, traffic citation, domestic violence

Included e-form features: photo image capture, audio and video capture, auto time/date stamping.

Training Information and Reference Library

It is planned to include at least a 2GB SD-Card (local storage) with every handheld device providing the opportunity for officers to view a substantial amount of locally stored reference material pre-formatted for the mobile display. All local data whether sensitive or not would be encrypted but using local storage would allow quick access to a large amount of useful training and reference material.

Additionally the Chirange software can look to centrally stored information on a secure webserver that can provide updates or additions to locally stored content or provide access to more dynamic important data like extensive contact details using a structured directory or free text search similar to a search engine.

The Windows Mobile OS has full multimedia capabilities allowing the use of audio and video content, but this must be used in line with available communications bandwidth if viewed online or within the storage limits of the media if stored locally.

File types that can be viewed: HTML and PDF are preferred, but others available.
Multimedia files: MP3, WMA, Flash

Enhanced Training/Search Module

This will have facility to Add new documents into the repository which will be divided into two categories static and dynamic contents. Static contents will be stored into the device itself (SD card) where as the dynamic contents will be stored in the server. The system will provide the facility to view/search for materials in a structured way, along with a comprehensive searching facility which can be used to search for strings within the documents (both local and on the central server).

Search results will be presented in a structured form (a bit like Google), where the user can click and view the relevant content. If the network connection is not there, then the system will only search the local repository. It will also have the facility to update/add static documents in the local repository (SD card). Other facilities like knowledgebase and FAQ generation can also be featured.

Database Search

The Chirange application has comprehensive data searching capabilities which can search local or centrally stored databases and data sources, these can be local or fixed national data sources.

Briefing

The Briefing module allows PowerPoint like presentation content to be created from easy to use templates, selecting text, images or multimedia content to generate a patrol, intelligence or operation briefing in digital form. Designed to be viewed on standard computer screens or large monitor displays, this same content is automatically reformatted to appear in a clean format on the PDA or Smartphone devices. The presentation author simply selects the mobile users they want to receive the information and this content is transmitted instantly to all the selected user’s devices for access and viewing in the field.

The briefing content will be viewed in a clear professional format that is easy to read, with easy navigation to select individual items. Content will include text, photo images and diagrams, we plan in a future release to add video and audio files. The content can be created centrally or locally and be sent to specific groups, divisions, locations or individual users within a police department.

Alert

An instant send features sends a message to all requested users, this could be a text message with photo image of a suspect for example, send immediately to a selected group of users. A visual alert appears on users handheld screens with an audible alert also being available if required.

Audit Trial

To cover all legal concerns about filing electronic data and information, Chirange incorporates an extensive audit trail log that is secure and is only assessable by senior authorised personnel. This maintains an accurate log of every logon, report edit, timestamp created within the system, it also locks access to photo captures so original files cannot be altered in anyway.

Chirange 2.0 is in development and planned for release in Q2 2009. 

A comprehensive feature list for Chirange 2.0 will be listed here shortly, which includes; real-time GPS tracking, geo-tagging and geo-fencing for briefing and alert information, integration with Google Maps and other GIS systems, integration with common Sat Nav systems and a new comprehensive reporting module.