After the deadliest year in more than 20 years, the Chicago Police Department released its 2017 initiatives to reduce violence. The initiative relies heavily on using technology, specifically data analytics, to better understand how law enforcement can best protect residents and visitors.

The Illinois Department of Information and Technology has partnered with the State of Telangana, India, to advance their smart state initiatives.

Seven weeks ago the Peoria (Ill.) Police Department and Peoria County Sheriff’s Office began testing the new Integrated Ballistics Identification Systems to help solve crime. The Federally funded IBIS equipment examines the unique characteristics of shell casings and compares the casings to others stored in the national database.

A new tool called the Electronic Recovery and Access to Data Prepaid Card Reader allows police officers to check the balance of cards, including credit and debit cards, gift cards, hotel key cards, library cards, and Metro cards. The device will be useful because criminals rarely travel with stacks of paper money anymore.

When Illinois deployed its first state computer system in 1974, Hardik Bhatt was just 2 years old. Since then, Illinois has deployed thousands of systems–one for every 20 of the state’s 60,000 employees, to be exact–with little or no thought given to how they should all work together. Forty-two years later, Illinois’ IT challenges have […]