HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is making plans to equip field officers with a new digital notebook software for use on SurfacePro tablets and mobile phones.
It is part of the effort to give its Fraud and Investigation Service (FIS) digital tools to support their investigations into civil and criminal cases, and will enable them to record evidential information while in the field.
The project is in the early stage of development but HMRC has published a market notice for a commercial off-the-shelf solution with the ability to record notes, take photographs, record audio and video, receive witness signatures and translate speech to text in several languages.
It emphasises the need to adhere to evidential standards to ensure the contents can be used in court, and for the notebook to have GPS and a date/time stamp function. Once saved any files should be locked against editing.
Image by Paul Clarke, paulclarke.com
