Device, system and method for interoperability between digital evidence management systems

A device to generate collaboration suggestions between multiple independent digital evidence management systems (DEMS) devices, the device comprising:

• a communication unit;
• and
• a controller interconnected with the communication unit, the controller configured to:
• receive, via the communication unit, from a requesting device, a search string requesting digital evidence, the search string comprising one or more user search strings;
• provide, via the communication unit, to a plurality of separate DEMS devices maintained by separate public safety agencies:
• corresponding search strings;
• and
• identification information identifying:
• a first user of the requesting device, and a first public safety agency membership of the first user;
• receive, via the communication unit, from at least a particular DEMS device, of the plurality of separate DEMS devices, a digital evidence record based on the search string, the digital evidence record describing a piece of digital evidence managed by the particular DEMS device and particular metadata associated with the digital evidence record identifying at least a second user and a second public safety agency membership of the second user that had previously accessed one or both of the digital evidence record and the metadata associated with the digital evidence record;
• generate a collaboration suggestion information identifying the second user and the second public safety agency membership based on one or more of:
• a comparison between a determined role of the first user and a determined role of the second user;
• a comparison between the first public safety agency membership of the first user and the second public safety agency membership of the second user;
• and
• a comparison between second metadata associated with the search string and the particular metadata selected from one or more of:
• a matching digital evidence search date or date range, a matching digital evidence search time or time range, a matching name or object identified in video or audio digital evidence, and a matching digital evidence search location or geographic search range;
• and
• provide, via the communication unit, to the requesting device, the digital evidence record and the collaborations suggestion information.