BLUF
- The proliferation of body-worn cameras, high-resolution digital photography, and widespread public- and private-sector camera deployments has created a serious pain point for law enforcement agencies.
- Traditional CAD/RMS platforms were architected in an era of text records and scanned documents — they are structurally unequipped for the storage, retrieval, and review demands of modern digital evidence.
- Vendors who do not address this gap leave agencies unable to attach critical media to the very incidents and cases those media document.
- Enforsys has responded to this imperative by building native large-media attachment capability directly into the Reliant CAD/RMS platform, giving officers and investigators immediate, in-context access to the video and imagery that defines contemporary law enforcement work.
The Traditional CAD/RMS Data Model and Its Origins
Historically, Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management Systems (RMS) were designed for text-centric records. CAD captured addresses, unit assignments, timestamps, and disposition codes. RMS stored narrative reports, arrest information, and scanned forms. Attachments were typically small (e.g., low-resolution photos or scanned pages), so most systems either stored limited binary data in the database or referenced files on local server shares. These approaches were sufficient when annual departmental records could be maintained on modest on-premises storage. This design matched the operational reality of the 2000’s and 2010’s : paper workflows were digitized, not re-architected. Vendors prioritized dispatch reliability, rapid record lookup, and NCIC/NLETS integration. Media management was rarely a core requirement.
A Changed Landscape: The Digital Evidence Explosion
That model no longer meets current needs. Agencies now generate digital evidence at high volume and high resolution. Body-worn cameras commonly capture full-HD and increasingly 4K video, producing multi-gigabyte files per shift across patrol operations. A single incident may include footage from multiple officers, in-car video, fixed cameras, and public smartphone recordings—each a primary evidentiary asset.
Still imagery has scaled similarly. Crime scenes are documented with high-megapixel images, and automated systems (e.g., LPR) with continuous high-resolution image capture. In many jurisdictions, video from public and private sources is expected as routine evidence. As a result, a single major incident can generate tens of gigabytes that must be stored, retrieved, reviewed, and disclosed.
In this context, storing media as database blobs or managing it through local file shares is not only insufficient—it creates operational risk. When media cannot be attached to and accessed from the incident or case record, agencies are forced into disconnected workflows, increasing the likelihood of chain-of-custody gaps, inconsistent documentation, delayed review, and slower prosecutorial disclosure. Closing the gap between where cases are managed (RMS) and where media resides (separate systems or ad hoc storage) is now a baseline requirement.
The Imperative for Integrated, Scalable Media Storage
Solving this is not a matter of adding storage capacity to an existing database. Large-media management requires a different architecture: scalable object storage (often cloud-based), independent from the transactional database, with redundancy and durability appropriate for evidentiary retention. Performance must support timely review directly from the case context. Equally important, the system must maintain authoritative linkage between each file and the associated incident, case, and reporting artifacts, supported by access controls, audit logging, and defensible chain-of-custody records.
Vendors that treat media as a peripheral feature effectively limit the CAD/RMS role as “system of record”. As prosecutors, courts, and accreditation bodies increasingly view digital media as primary evidence, integrated media handling becomes a core platform requirement.
Enforsys Reliant CAD/RMS: Built for the Media-Rich Environment
Enforsys addresses this requirement in the Reliant CAD/RMS platform through native support for large-file attachments across incident and case workflows. Reliant uses Azure Blob Storage—Microsoft’s cloud-native object storage—to store high-resolution images, body camera video, drone footage, and other large files outside the core relational database while maintaining direct association to the relevant record. Users can attach and access multi-gigabyte files within Reliant without switching tools or relying on separate evidence portals. Storage is governed by role-based access controls, audit logging, and redundancy aligned with Enforsys’ CJIS-compliant Azure Government Cloud architecture. For agencies managing the digital evidence lifecycle from call-for-service through prosecution, this closes the operational gap between case documentation and the media that substantiates it.