Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by Gregg Hudson, mobility and Automation Manager for West Midlands Police, responsible for the security of almost three million inhabitants of the West Midland region of England.
To serve society, West Midland’s police officers must be out in the community as often as possible, collect and share information to help protect citizens. The mobile device fleet must support targets for the security of sensitive data as well as improve official productivity.
My department identified Android Enterprise as the solution that provided easy control, security and compatibility needed to solve the challenges faced by law enforcement authorities in the field every day. The extensive capabilities of Android Enterprise fully managed devices combined with support from Android Enterprise Gold Partners, including managed service providers (MSPs) such as Vodafone, have enabled the strength of surpassing its mobility ambitions. With Android’s Advanced Security and the integration of new AI-powered corporate features, Android Enterprise is set to be the lasting platform for West Midland’s Police Department.
Protection of citizens and evidence
Police departments have transferred the collection and secure management of large quantities of very sensitive data – not only to maintain citizens’ privacy, but also to maintain evidence so that it can be admitted in court during litigation. In addition to all transmissions on fully managed Android Enterprise devices that are encrypted within the police department, the Department of Private Certificates for applications is automatically revoked if a device has been manipulated. Restricting app –downloads through the use of the managed Google Play store provides additional protective measures against unauthorized app downloads.
The West Midland police maintain total control over the tech stack using Android’s Open Source nature to build robust solutions with direct API integration in many use cases. In addition, us and applications are always updated quickly via the chosen priority mode for apps. In fact, we consider Android Enterprise as one of the most secure solutions that the department could have chosen. With full control of hardware features and data loss prevention, there are no problems meeting the high columns set by our external security advisers.
Productivity gains for both employees and that
West Midlands is on the verge of a transformative era as AI becomes more and more widespread in the workplace. By adopting AI across the organization, the strength expects to lock remarkable productivity gains for officers and staff. AI on Android makes it easy to reintroduce a future where procedural guides currently based on time-consuming, multi-query decision trees are more effective and user-friendly. Our technology team sees the potential to improve these workflows with the power of Gemini and Notebooklm, creating a more streamlined, intuitive and effective process for our teams on Earth. This will not only be an incremental improvement, it is a jump forward in how teams gain access to critical information and work with newly won speed and clarity.
AI’s collaboration potential and our pre -installed custom applications are ready to significantly increase officers and staff productivity. West Midlands police leaders imagine a future where officers can immediately and safely access the police register and critical procedural guides directly through their Android Enterprise devices. This will allow them to spend less time on administrative tasks at the station and more time engaging with citizens in the community and ultimately promoting stronger public service.
As a complement to these progress, the inherent manageability of Android Enterprise flows additional IT operations and reduces support requirements, which is crucial to a team that supports 14,000 employees across dozens of different roles. The use of the Android Enterprise Oemconfig tool allows us to easily set security and functionality policies and link them to Active Directory groups or custom configurations. This has dramatically streamlined the process of implementing new devices and redistribution of existing ones, reducing the time required to deliver a device from three hours to just 15 minutes.
In addition to implementation, Android Enterprise has also led to a significant reduction in support requests; Where earlier 80% were problem-related and 20% were functional requests, the ratio today has changed to 60-70% function requests, which reflects significantly fewer problems.
Serves society with partners
The West Midland police have seen first-hand that establishing and managing a mobile fleet on our scale requires close cooperation with skilled MSPs and suppliers. The police government’s obligation to this partnership method is so strong that MSPs are now obliged to achieve gold -certified partner status, a distinction that long -time partner Vodafone has just achieved. This ensures that the police force remains deeply integrated into the wider Android Enterprise ecosystem, utilization of any benefit to the staff and officers by helping guarantee best in class product validation, advanced technical expertise and superior customer service directly approved by Google.
For over a decade, the West Midland police, with its 14,000+ officers, have collaborated with Vodafone on an important digital transformation. This collaboration has created a smooth workforce and significantly improved public service by providing a real-time data connection and comprehensive managed services via Vodafone’s network-a network, which is also trusting 77% of British relief services for its speed and security. Now, officers can instantly capture testimony or evidence of crime directly on their devices, reduce administrative papers and allow them to focus more on direct social engagement.
Ready to raise your company mobility? Browse Android Enterprise Solutions Directory to find validated silver and gold-certified partners who are proved experts in securing and managing your company’s mobile fleet.