Digitalising law enforcement: Prosecutor General’s Office launches beta test of public dashboard of the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations

The dashboard of criminal offences related to businesses from the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations (URPI) has been launched.

It was developed by the Prosecutor General’s Office jointly with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Council for Support of Entrepreneurship under Martial Law.

“Today, we are presenting another product of our joint work – an effective mechanism for increasing transparency and efficiency of law enforcement agencies in Ukraine. This is a response to the needs of society. This is a response to the demand of business and investors who want to see justice and integrity in the work of law enforcement. I am pleased that the discussion on the pressure of controlling authorities on business will finally be transferred to the plane of numbers and data, not posts in social media,” said Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak.

The URPI Dashboard is an analytical module that digitises data from prosecutors and courts on criminal offences related to businesses in Ukraine. It contains data on the statistics of investigations and court proceedings in a format that is easy to analyse and understand. It also has filters for a specific article or period, as well as separately by the authorities investigating cases. Previously, the information was stored in dozens of tables, some of which could be closed.

“Ukraine is the only country in the world that develops open data in the context of a full-scale war. Four years ago, we were in the top 20 of the European ranking, and now we are in the top 3. The creation of the dashboard is another signal that we have to become a leader in the field of open data. In fact, everyone gets a convenient tool for analysing data that was previously available in dozens of tables or was closed. This is a revolutionary step that improves the interaction between businesses and the state and makes the law enforcement system more transparent,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development and Minister of Digital Transformation.

The team of the Ministry of Digital Transformation helped to analyse:

• business processes of procedural investigative actions, data processed in the URPI;
• data that are not in the register and those that should be logged and collected for visualisation on a dashboard;
• technical specification of the registry.

Also, recommendations were provided on criteria and triggers in the system to identify anomalies of pressure on business, track the dynamics of anomalies, supplement the data structure, and help with the design of landing charts.

“This is a successful example of cooperation between the state and the private sector, when the state receives a quick and effective response to a request. We especially appreciate such support in the context of extremely limited resources during the war. This is a clear demonstration of our commitment to greater openness and additional opportunities to search for anomalies – mistakes or abuses that the Prosecutor General’s Office seeks to identify and correct to meet the business’s demand for justice,” said Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin.

What does the digitalisation of offences control bring to business?

The dashboard can be used by any citizen or institution. On the one hand, it allows the Prosecutor General’s Office to see a clearer picture of the state of affairs in the field of economic crime in Ukraine. On the other hand, it helps to make law enforcement activities more transparent, minimise the human factor, speed up data exchange, and reduce the risk of data loss and manipulation.

“For me, as an entrepreneur who has been building an IT business for 18 years, digitalisation of processes plays a key role in building trust in the state. The creation of the dashboard is a rather bold step towards business and society as a whole, a step towards transparency of the law enforcement system. I am grateful to Prosecutor General Kostin for his openness and readiness for such changes. In the long run, the increase in data should result in the construction of a fully automatic risk management system that will work with Big Data. The plans are ambitious, but the process has already been launched,” said Artem Borodatiuk, founder of Netpeak Group, member of the Presidential Office’s Council for Support of Entrepreneurship under Martial Law.

Entrepreneurs, government officials and the public will be able to get acquainted with analytical data and statistics on the work of law enforcement agencies in combating economic crimes in a convenient format. This will allow them to see the real situation, track its dynamics and trends.

The digitalisation of processes within the prosecutor’s office helps not only to access data on criminal cases, but also to ensure transparent access to justice in Ukraine in general.