Commonwealth to move public prosecution evidence management into the cloud

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) has said it is looking to shift the way the Office of the DPP carries out business processes that are associated with storing and preparing evidence for large prosecutions into the cloud.

In a request for tender, the CDPP outlined how the software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform will be used "to provide a flexible digital litigation tool for the management, mapping, and analysis of evidence and legal concepts for the assessment and prosecution of criminal cases".

The CDPP added the platform would enable the department to modernise its litigation practice, work collaboratively with internal and external prosecution team members, and increase overall efficiency and effectiveness when managing prosecutions.

Under the key requirements for the solution, the CDPP said it should be scalable for multiple users as demand requires, including allowing multiple users to simultaneously view, tag, search within a single brief, and instantly capture and share any recorded legal analysis in real time to avoid work being duplicated.

Keyword searching to quickly locate documents and evidence that have been organised as being objective or subjective data is also another requirement, the CDPP said.

"This can be used to gain insights into a case and to find crucial evidence. A digital litigation solution should facilitate the review and organisation of documents into a list based on the keywords within the document," the tender document outlined.

See also: SaaS, PaaS, IaaS: The differences between each and how to pick the right one (TechRepublic)

The CDPP also requires the solution to comply with the mandatory Australian government Information Security Manual (ISM) controls for a protected ISM classification and be hosted in Australia.

According to the tender document, some of the material that would be uploaded to the solution may include telephone intercept material and stored communications and telecommunications data. Due to this, the CDPP warned the successful company must understand that "serious criminal sanctions apply to any further dissemination, communication, recording or use of the intercepted information that exceeds a permitted purpose".

"The respondent shall at all times seek advice from the CDPP in advance if it is proposed that any material provided by the CDPP to the Respondent will be used for a purpose other than a permitted purpose," the document said.

The successful company may also be required to provide data wrangling services, including inputting, coding, generating metadata, and linking documents within the platform, the CDPP said.

The initial contract would be for three years, with two optional extensions of 12 months each.

Submissions close 19 June 2020. 

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