Serious Fraud Office searches for evidence with Convera technology

Convera has announced that its RetrievalWare technology has been selected as a key component of the Serious Fraud Office's (SFO) electronic case investigation system, Docman, developed by LogicaCMG.
The SFO is a government department that investigates and prosecutes the most complex and major economic crimes in the UK. Working with the police and other government agencies, it is currently investigating frauds totalling approximately £2 billion.
The announcement follows the distribution of the SFO's annual report that highlights the confidence the SFO management board has in Docman and its associated search platform for significantly reducing investigation times. As a result, the SFO plans for Docman to become the SFO's primary investigation system for all new cases and believes the concept can be applied to any organisation involved in information analysis, such as other criminal justice departments, corporate fraud investigators, law firms, data miners and university researchers.
"The experience we have of using Docman, working on three live cases, gives us confidence that other benefits will be realised and that the system can be applied to great effect far more widely than just SFO or fraud cases," said Peter Kiernan, Assistant Director, SFO. The trial period has shown that Docman, helped by the speed and efficiency of Convera's sophisticated search technology, can cut the time taken in the main investigation phase, the initial review of the seized evidence, by between one and four months.
Furthermore, an additional two months can potentially be saved during the review process as new case material emerges and needs to be searched.
Working in partnership with LogicaCMG, Convera's RetrievalWare was chosen as a technology proven to deliver a simple, yet effective way of uncovering vital information through search queries. With an extensive history working within the intelligence industry, Convera's technology was able to fulfil the underlying principle of Docman - the ability to allow maximum flexibility for staff using the system whilst also maintaining absolute control of the integrity of the information within it.
(GB)