Qld Police wins funding to extend iPad rollout

The Queensland Police Service has secured funding to roll out a further 1250 iPads to frontline officers to service the Brisbane G20 meeting in November, following a successful trial of 500 Apple devices over the past six months.

The state police force revealed mid last year it was testing a mobile data strategy on Apple iPad minis and iPhones combined with a home-grown app to allow frontline police to access three databases while on the road.

The trial - which was aimed at cutting down on admin time and getting more officers out in the field - started with an initial 50 users and grew to encompass around 500. 

The QPS had hoped the trial would result in hundreds more devices being rolled out in time for November’s G20 meeting in Brisbane - an initiative Police Minister Jack Dempsey today announced the government would fund.

A further 1250 frontline officers will be equipped with iPads by November, he said today. The iPads will be provisioned to officers with heavy involvement in the global summit.

The minister’s office declined to provide a cost for the project.

The QPS was given $22 million funding under the 2013-14 state budget for several new IT reforms, including a business case for a full rollout of mobile devices.

The QPS has a police service of around 10,500 sworn officers, of which around 5400 are on the frontline. It hopes to eventually provision all frontline officers with a mobile device running the application.

The QLiTE app, built by QPS’ internal IT team, uses an HTML5 client, an Apple iOS wrap, and utilises MobileIron’s mobile device management solution.

It offers a gateway into the QPRIME (Queensland Police records information management exchange, which holds records for crimes, missing persons, crashes, and sudden deaths); the Transport and Main Roads’ database for vehicles, registration and licenses; and the national CrimTrac database.

The databases were previously only accessible via a desktop computer at base or by calling personnel at the police communications centre on a two-way radio. 

The new mobile solution is saving officers up to 30 minutes each shift in desk time, Dempsey said today, which equated to over 1000 desk hours a week.

The solution has also more recently enabled Brisbane police officers to watch live CCTV footage on iPads and iPhones.