Digital Evidence Management System (DEMS)
What is DEMS?
Thames Valley Police is now using an innovative system to bring together all of our digital evidence for cases in one place.
This means if you receive an email request from a police officer, you can upload footage from your mobile phone, dash-cam, doorbell, CCTV or any other digital evidence you have which may assist an investigation, to our Digital Evidence Management System (DEMS).
This simplified system, provided to TVP by NICE Investigate, removes the need for you to download the material to a disk and to set time aside to make an appointment with a police officer. This also allows for quicker investigations and victims of crime to have resolutions sooner.
The CCTV and relevant material provided by you to us will be used for the investigation of a crime or incident and its suitability will be considered as evidence for any future prosecution.
Any evidence which is submitted to the police should always be in relation to a particular incident that is under investigation, and not as a means of reporting an incident or for any other reason. Incidents should instead be reported on our website or by calling the non-emergency number 101, or 999 in an emergency situation.
You may be required to attend court to give evidence about your involvement as a result of evidence that you produce to the police. If you have any concerns about this, you should speak to the police officer or member of police staff who is dealing with the case before you submit evidence or relevant material.
How do I do this?
There are 3 ways in which you can assist TVP:
Reactive Requests
After an incident has been reported to the police, an officer or member of staff conducting enquiries may speak to you and subsequently you may be sent a link to your email address or via text message to upload your digital evidence. This request will feature the name of SERIP – South East Region Integrated Policing – a partnership in which Thames Valley Police is a member.
Media Appeals
TVP may issue a public appeal for information through a media release on our website, which may include a link to DEMS. This allows you to click through and directly upload your material from the comfort of your own home. An officer will contact you if further assistance is needed, such as to take a statement. You are most likely to see the DEMS link on one of our social media posts.
Proactive Registration
If you have closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, you can register to provide the locations of the cameras which may capture vital evidence in the event of a crime occurring on or near your premises. Registration is encouraged even in the event that a crime has not taken place.
If you have registered the location of your CCTV camera, the details will be stored on a register that will be available to other UK police forces using the DEMS provided by NICE Investigate.
Keeping your information safe
The police force investigating your crime will be responsible for the secure and lawful handling of media footage you submit to us via the Digital Evidence Management System (DEMS) community portal.
We will be assisted by NICE Investigate, which secures the digital evidence on our behalf. The use of the information within DEMS is managed by the police force investigating your report.
If digital media material provided by you is used in a criminal prosecution, it may be shared with other criminal justice agencies which will be responsible for any copies of the information they receive.