Criminology Research Council grant ; (22/87)
The aim of this project was to test the applicability and examine the relevance of the Netmap System to intelligence use, specifically to certain uses that the National Crime Authority sought to explore. The NETMAP software has already demonstrated its effectiveness in various commercial application areas in facilitating analysis of relationship and communication patterns and in detecting networks and graphically displaying those networks and associated linkages.
The primary goal of this project was to determine the viability of the NETMAP software to assist law enforcement intelligence analysts in their examination of criminal and suspected criminal organisations through visual analysis technology to gain a better understanding of current criminal relationships and to facilitate efficient and effective methods of targeting.
Included among the various types of intelligence data which formed the basis of this trial, were visual and interactive analysis of telephone traffic data, money and asset flows, suspected fraudulent relationships, criminal case accumulated relationships and sequencing, and various 'live' investigations.
The research was conducted in cooperation with the National Crime Authority and the Authority conducted an evaluation of the project. The evaluation concluded that the results of the trial were encouraging and vindicated the earlier vision of producing 'the original intelligence officer's crystal ball'. Advantages of the NETMAP software to an intelligence analyst included the fact that NETMAP pictures can display data which the user can manipulate to show specific emerging patterns. Thus the analyst can view all relevant data from different perspectives very easily and quickly. The evaluation noted that this was the beginning of visual analysis technology which was a 'quantum leap forward for intelligence analysts'. The evaluation concluded that netmapping was both a timely and cost-effective way for analysts to support criminal investigations.