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Notes helps agencies leave behind paper for a shareable, searchable and secure note-taking solution
A trial is a life-changing event. As the courts themselves declare, a verdict can't be handed down if there is a "shadow of a doubt" about the evidence put up for examination. That's why in Canada the law insists police officers and other members of law enforcement agencies must take notes about the events that occur throughout their shift. Whether it's a traffic stop or an interaction with a citizen, all first-hand interactions are jotted down.
In the Canadian courts, the notes the police officers take can be submitted to the Crown as evidence for a case. Clear, concise notes are a vital requirement if the Crown is to apply justice confidently. Most Canadian police officers still take notes with paper pads. Paper gets lost, paper gets damaged. Paper holding vital testimony can blow away.
Axon’s Notes module brings police note-taking into the digital age to help improve efficiency and simplify prosecutor proceedings. The easy-to-use, highly secure mobile app makes it simple for officers to take notes, store them safely and search them in a moment. Better still, Notes shaves away hours of redundant data entry work by consolidating several note-taking tasks through one app to save agencies time and resources for the moments that matter most.
Paper police notepads: A trusted tool with new opportunities for modern enhancements
In 2006, the Ontario Court of Justice ruled that Canadian officers must always carry issued notepads and make complete, accurate notes of their actions and observations through their shifts. These notes can serve as essential evidence in a trial, so it's important they're not torn, spoiled or lost. They also need to be legible and easy to retrieve when needed by the Crown.
Following the 2006 ruling, the 2009 Supreme Court of Canada decision in R v McNeil established that the Crown must disclose any records, including police notes, that could affect the credibility of a police witness. This landmark decision emphasized the importance of transparency in legal proceedings and reinforced the critical role of accurate and comprehensive police note-taking in ensuring a fair trial.
The police notepad is well-suited for a digital evolution for numerous reasons. For one thing, it's yet another object that needs to be carried around. "One thing every officer told us was how cumbersome it is to carry these paper notepads on them," says Afiya Nusrat, Senior Product Manager at Axon. "They're already suited up. They have armor on them. They're carrying weapons on them, and this is yet another thing they need to account for because it's evidentiary."
Police notes used for evidence obviously need to be readable, but that's easier said than done when someone is giving a rapid-fire testimony of what happened at a crime scene. As Nusrat points out, "If [the officer] is on the field talking to someone, [neat handwriting] is not something that's at the top of their mind."
And then there are adverse weather conditions, especially snow and ice, which don't play well with paper and ink. Police officers should not have to deal with wet, illegible notes when dealing with highly classified and personal information.
Moving from paper to the cloud
There are clear, immediate benefits to switching from paper note-taking to Notes. Notes is cloud-based, which makes it accessible on any device or platform, which means it is always ready to access whether in a car or out in the community.
Exact processes vary between agencies, but many expect their officers to submit their analog notes digitally through transcription and scanning. Nusrat provides an example of how much time can be spent on the process: "It's redundant data entry. They [the police] look at call times, write it out on their note, then retype it when they're doing their incident reports. It's so repetitive." Whereas with Notes, these barriers are removed, which makes it even easier to share notes with others at the agency and in the justice system.
But accessibility is even more important than convenience. "Boxes and boxes of notepads stack up. They need to be retained because, again, they're evidentiary," Nusrat says. "Storage retention is a huge issue that digitization can help with. Once it's on the cloud, you don't have to deal with physical space." Notes helps ensure that data is stored securely and is only accessible to those with the designated permissions, while also providing an easy way to search and find notes of importance at any time.
Using an intuitive dictation-based module like Notes can even help strengthen the bond between police officers and communities. Audit logs ensure notes’ integrity, which creates the kind of transparency and accountability that builds and maintains trust. Notes lets officers take, store and transfer important testimony while still letting them engage with citizens on a personal level.
A new era for police note-taking
Axon’s Notes module isn't just a standard upgrade for Canada's police notepads; it's an essential one. Police are working to be more involved with their communities and building trust. That means more eye contact, and more smiling at neighbors, neither of which is easy to do when a notebook demands attention and focus away from surroundings. Giving back to communities also means building trust. Trust, in turn, means the evidence presented in matters of law needs to be crystal clear. It needs to be recalled and searched as necessary, and it needs to be kept more secure than paper and ink on a rainy day.
To learn more about how Notes can help your agency modernize its note-taking, get in touch with one of our experts and watch our webinar.