The session aims to provide an open forum to discuss the proposed Retail Crime Fusion Cell.

The project sits under the Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy held by Merseyside Assistant Chief Constable Alex Goss who is the National Police Chiefs Council lead for Retail Crime. The strategy delivery is being managed by the National Business Crime Centre with the Fusion Cell functionality sitting in Opal, the National Intelligence Unit for Serious Organised Acquisitive Crime.

The session will be run jointly by NBCC and Opal aiming to:

  • Discuss the aims for the Fusion Cell
  • Provide an overview of our current position within the process
  • Discuss the system requirements providing any wider contextual information helpful to interested vendors
  • Provide an open form for questions and discussion

Although the session is an open form, it is intended for those who are genuinely considering involvement in the tender process for the Fusion Cell. This is NOT a general information session for interested parties. If you would like to attend the session, in no more than 100 words please explain your interest in the session and reason for attendance. Please submit this by COP 30 June.

Following confirmation of your attendance you will receive our system requirements with time to review in advance of the meeting.

Disclaimer: Please note although the session is being hosted by TechUK, they are acting impartially to support this exploratory session. There is no requirement to be a TechUK member to attend nor is there any benefit to any participating parties of being a TechUK member.

Background:

Retail crime has a significant impact on society; however, knowledge of the threat picture remains limited. Opal holds the largest national repository of retail crime incident data which evidences that only 19% of retail crime is reported to Police.

The principle of the Retail Crime Fusion Cell (RCFC) sits at the heart of the Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy (Tackling Retail Crime Together | National Business Crime Centre).

The Fusion Cell will act the central pillar of the TRCT strategy feeding into and dynamically developing from the surrounding strategy pillars ensuring the approach remains driven by intelligence and data. It will build upon the data held by Opal to become the richest single source of retail crime data and intelligence bringing together data from police forces and industry partners to demonstrate the true nature and scale of retail crime enabling an improved response to crime prioritising safeguarding of individuals.

The Fusion Cell will provide a self-service interactive portal accessible to police and industry partners supplying strategic, tactical, and operational insights in a range of areas including crime levels, methodologies, trends, high-harm locations, and the identification of linked offending. The range of insights will continue to expand as the Fusion Cell grows and connects with more partners strengthening information sources to offer predictive insights empowering partners in their creation of proactive strategies to combat retail crime.

In addition, the Fusion Cell will have the capability to facilitate links between other systems used across industry partners with strict information security controls to maximise collaboration opportunities to detect and prevent offending supporting both offender management strategies for prolific offenders and disruption strategies for organised crime groups. It is important to note that the Fusion Cells aims to maximise and enhance current functionalities and capabilities across retail and policing partners and is not intended to replicate or replace any existing capabilities.

Core features of the model include:

  • Ingestion of a wide range of data from multiple sources
  • Connectivity to other systems to push and pull data between sources.
  • Ability to cleanse, sort and categorise the data.
  • Use of customisable analytical tools creating automation where possible with a focus on predictive analysis
  • Accessible and easy to use stakeholder portal for use by police and industry partners.
  • Incorporation of a facial matching tool to support improved identification and linking of offenders
  • Case management tool for use by the Opal team with the capability to interact with the stakeholder portal.
  • Ability to incorporate adaptations in existing functionality and the development of new functionality as technology, threats and demand evolve.

Dave Evans

Dave Evans

Head of Programme - Justice and Emergency Services and Economic Crime Lead, techUK

Cinzia Miatto

Cinzia Miatto

Senior Programme Manager - Justice & Emergency Services, techUK

Fran Richiusa

Fran Richiusa

Junior Programme Manager - Justice and Emergency Services, techUK

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Meet the team 

Dave Evans

Dave Evans

Head of Programme - Justice and Emergency Services and Economic Crime Lead, techUK

Cinzia Miatto

Cinzia Miatto

Senior Programme Manager - Justice & Emergency Services, techUK

Fran Richiusa

Fran Richiusa

Junior Programme Manager - Justice and Emergency Services, techUK