Dell has launched a service designed to help law-enforcement agencies convict more criminals as digital evidence proliferates.

The company claims its digital-forensics offering will help police reduce backlogs that can be as long as two years, as it allows multiple analysts to work simultaneously on the same data, while preserving an audit trail of evidence-handling.

“Law enforcement agencies across the world have told us about the enormous challenges they face in analysing huge volumes of data on seized digital devices,” says Josh Claman, head of Dell’s European public-sector business.

James Quarles, Dell’s head of public-sector marketing in Europe, says customers remotely accessing criminal evidence in parallel from Dell datacenters could gain a crucial time advantage, for example when legally constrained as to how long they could hold terrorism suspects without evidence.

Dell made about $15 billion in sales to the public sector last year, including hospitals, government, education and defence – about a quarter of its total revenue.

The company cited estimates by research firm IDC that the US digital-forensics market would be worth $630 million this year, up from $252 million in 2004, while the international market would be worth $1.8 billion by 2011.

Partners in Dell’s offering include data-storage gear maker EMC, Intel, Oracle, Symantec and privately held digital-forensics specialist AccessData.

Dell will present the new service to Britain’s Association of Chief Police Officers today.

Reuters