Process Automation in the Scenario of Intelligence and Investigation Units: An Experience

Being an emerging and very important topic mainly due to the negative economic and social impacts, crime prevention is a worldwide concern. In this context, government institutions in several countries have instituted units or sectors specialized in investigation and intelligence activities to act in different areas and expertise’s. Due to the diversity and volume of existing crime practices, concerns about the evolution and expansion of crime help in the rising of an opportunity to adopt concepts of process automation in order to assist the treatment of the high volume of requests directed at these specialized units. Exploring the main characteristics of process automation, this paper presents an overview of different application trends and performs an experience in a real scenario of a specialized unity. Results point out the benefits achieved, and discussions about challenges and needs inherent to the application of process automation in the context of units that perform or support intelligence and investigation activities are presented.