Location data is ubiquitous, and nowhere is its use more important than in law enforcement. From criminal investigations to operational planning and officer safety, few tools provide value across a police department the way location data does. Gleaning intelligence from suspect-focused, warrant-approved raw data delivered by GPS trackers, cellular phone records, License Plate Recognition, Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), financial transactions, and other similar sources continues to have significant impacts on both investigations and internal efficiencies. However, many agencies struggle to obtain the full value of the data they already collect on the individuals approved for police surveillance by the courts.

Often, the investigative value of location data relies on data that is less than 24 hours old. Investigators are routinely interested in the “most recent” location of a suspect in order to set up surveillance. If weeks of tracker and cellular data on the suspect have been collected, reams of valuable intelligence are simply ignored with such a narrow focus. For example, is it more important to know a target visited a warehouse yesterday, or to know that he visits the warehouse every second day at 3:00 p.m. and comes from and goes to the same location before and after each visit?