Summary:
- The teams of public safety agencies face significant challenges in managing the complexity of their digital evidence practice.
- These challenges include increased diverse evidence file types, CJIS compliance, and disjointed evidence workflows, reducing efficiency and sapping resources.
- Artificial intelligence can now provide superhuman powers to the teams of public safety agencies to do more with their evidence in a single, secure hub with multiple capabilities.
The digital age has reshaped the public safety landscape in numerous ways, including managing digital evidence. Public safety agencies are awash in data, thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones, body cams, and omnipresent video surveillance. For instance, body-worn cameras are now deployed in over 80% of major police agencies globally, dramatically increasing the volume of video evidence collected per incident.
Add the pressing demands for the timely release of evidence as required by state and federal laws, and the result is a perfect storm that overwhelms agencies with outdated processes. In this blog, we’ll look at the three most pressing challenges these teams face with their digital evidence management practice and how emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are pivotal in streamlining many of these processes.
Challenge #1: Managing record volume and diverse file types.
In the era of constant connectivity, smartphones, surveillance systems, and social media platforms are deluging public safety agencies with an unprecedented volume of digital evidence. Modern investigations routinely generate dozens to hundreds of separate digital files per case, including body-worn camera footage, CCTV feeds, mobile extractions, and forensic downloads—often totaling terabytes of data for a single incident in serious cases. CPR News reports that even routine criminal investigations now generate tens of recordings per case, compared to only a handful a decade ago, driven largely by body-worn cameras and pervasive surveillance systems.
The scale of video evidence alone illustrates the burden. A recent field report from practitioners in Denver notes that some agencies have experienced a 600% increase in audio and video evidence in the past five years, with even minor misdemeanor cases producing hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes of data per incident.
Files come in many formats, each requiring specific handling, from videos and images to documents and text messages. These files also exist in disparate locations, some on-premise or cloud-based, meaning they are not in a single location where they can easily be accessed and analyzed. Moreover, traditional manual processing is cumbersome and riddled with inefficiencies.
The burden of processing this material is well documented in federal research. The National Institute of Justice has noted that digital evidence is now a standard component of nearly all criminal investigations, but agencies and forensic systems have struggled to keep pace with the volume and complexity of incoming digital data.
Further, a 2022 federally funded study of body-worn camera programs found that agencies most frequently cited storage limitations, staffing constraints, and video redaction workload as major operational challenges in managing digital evidence. And hybrid processes that use a combination of technology and manual processes create gaps that can compromise the success of investigations.
AI is changing that now by automating transcription, facilitating translation, carrying out redaction, finding objects, license plates, people, and key evidence investigators are searching for and tagging files with descriptive metadata.
This not only streamlines the sorting and retrieval process but also significantly reduces the burden on investigators who previously had to review and process diverse types of evidence manually. They can now find that “needle in the haystack” within large compilations of evidence, accelerating their ability to surface actionable intelligence that can impact an investigation.
Challenge #2: Maintaining CJIS compliance
Protecting sensitive data is a paramount concern for public safety agencies, particularly when this data comprises evidence integral to criminal investigations. These agencies are increasingly targeted as cyber threats escalate globally. In 2024 alone, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 859,532 cybercrime complaints with over $16.6 billion in reported losses, marking a 33% year-over-year increase in losses.
As custodians of sensitive criminal justice data, agencies are particularly exposed because cyberattacks are increasingly targeting government and public infrastructure. The FBI’s Internet Crime Report highlights that critical infrastructure sectors—including government services—continue to be among the most frequently targeted by ransomware and extortion-based attacks, with ransomware complaints rising year over year.
The financial impact underscores the scale of the threat. Cyber-enabled fraud alone accounted for $13.7 billion of total losses in 2024, or roughly 83% of all reported cybercrime losses, showing how effectively attackers exploit digital systems and human workflows alike.
Securing evidence management infrastructure is therefore a delicate balance. It must be resilient against rapidly increasing cyber threats while still enabling authorized access for investigations, prosecutions, and inter-agency collaboration. With cybercrime losses reaching record levels and critical infrastructure remaining a consistent target, the risk environment for public safety data continues to intensify.
CJIS Compliance provides a framework to ensure security without sacrificing functionality. Solutions like Veritone’s AI-driven technologies are designed with these compliance requirements, aligning with our AI for Good principles to ensure that safety, security, and compliance are never compromised in developing new AI solutions.
Challenge #3: Disjointed workflows in evidence processing
Evidence processing involves numerous steps, from identifying relevant evidence to redacting sensitive information and tagging for easy retrieval. In modern investigations, body-worn camera files alone can generate hundreds of hours of video per case load at the agency level, with prosecutors reporting individual attorneys responsible for reviewing up to 400 hours of video within short statutory timelines.
A federally funded study on digital evidence management found that agencies most frequently cite cost, staffing constraints, and video redaction as their top operational challenges, with redaction alone identified as a major bottleneck in 28% of surveyed agencies.
Traditionally, these tasks might be handled by different software solutions, resulting in a fragmented and inefficient workflow. By automating the myriad tasks involved in evidence processing, AI-powered systems enable investigators to rapidly pinpoint relevant evidence, transcribe conversations, translate languages, and redact confidential information. All this can now be accomplished within a single, unified platform, drastically reducing the time and resources spent managing evidence.
Using AI to evolve digital evidence management practices
Many public safety agencies still need to rely on a patchwork of manual processes and disparate solutions for logging and analyzing digital evidence. This places immense strain on personnel, potentially leading to burnout and errors, and risks missing critical evidence due to inefficiency.
Integrating AI into evidence management is revolutionizing how agencies approach their processes. Veritone iDEMS is a cutting-edge AI-powered solution that merges our robust media management technology with our other public safety solutions, creating a CJIS-compliant environment for processing and analyzing evidence.
It simplifies access to essential tasks like transcription, translation, redaction, object detection, license detection, facial recognition, and more, all within the same ecosystem.
This isn’t just about technological advancement; it’s about empowering the people behind the scenes. By alleviating the grunt work through AI, you can empower your teams to accomplish more and magnify their impact— it’s AI for the people, by the people.
For public safety agencies looking to save time, reduce resource drain, and close more investigations faster, AI can help transform how your teams work, freeing them to focus on more mission-critical tasks rather than becoming buried in repetitive taskwork.
Learn more about Veritone iDEMS.
Sources:
https://www.360researchreports.com/market-reports/body-worn-camera-body-worn-camera-market-210460
https://www.cpr.org/2026/01/02/overwhelming-digital-evidence-body-cam-footage/
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/forensics/digital-multimedia-evidence
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-annual-internet-crime-report
