Strengthening Law Enforcement Evidence Integrity With Electronic Key Control

If you’re an evidence technician, you understand the importance of maintaining a tight chain of custody and ensuring evidence integrity. Even minor lapses in security protocols can jeopardize cases and erode public trust. While controlling access to evidence rooms can be challenging, electronic key and asset management systems offer a solution to enhance security and accountability.

What Are Electronic Key and Asset Management Systems?

Key control systems typically feature specialized drawers or panels for securing keys or access cards. Some also include secure lockers for managing a range of items, including evidence, laptops, tools, weapons, ammunition, radios, tasers, and more.

By implementing key and asset management solutions, you can replace manual processes with automatic user authentication, secure storage, and verifiable audit trails of key and asset activity.

How Do They Help With Evidence Management?

Reinforce the Chain of Custody

Electronic key control systems complement evidence management databases and door access control systems to protect evidence integrity. Without proper key control, unauthorized access to the property room or evidence lockers can break the chain of custody, potentially derailing a case.

For example, let’s say a police department’s evidence room uses a KeyTrak Guardian system with a locker panel. The dual check-in and checkout feature allows officers to deposit evidence, but only the evidence technician can open the lockers again to access the submissions. Once the evidence custodian empties the occupied lockers, they’re once again available to officers.

KeyTrak Guardian system with lockers 

If your department already has separate evidence lockers, you can enhance security by storing the locker keys in a key control system. Only authorized property room personnel would be able to access and remove them, and the system would record every key that’s checked out or returned.

Automatically Log Key Access

Having a verifiable log is valuable if allegations arise about mishandled evidence. If you use manual logs to track every time someone checks a key in or out, the audit trail is more susceptible to human error and manipulation.

With an electronic key control system, a user must log in with their unique credentials and select a checkout reason. The system then captures data like who accessed the key, when, and why. This detailed audit trail enhances accountability and provides an objective record of all key activity to verify proper procedures were followed.

Simplify Compliance and Audits

Maintaining strong key control is essential not only for security but also for compliance with accreditation standards. For instance, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) includes key control as a requirement for achieving its highest level of accreditation.

To identify weaknesses in your key control procedures, regular audits are crucial. For example, when the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office investigated a sheriff’s office's evidence room, the inspection revealed extra keys to the evidence room in an unlocked drawer, as well as unsecured evidence stored on the premises. This lack of proper controls could have resulted in unauthorized access to evidence, potentially jeopardizing ongoing investigations or court cases.

This lack of proper controls could have resulted in unauthorized access to evidence, potentially jeopardizing ongoing investigations or court cases.

The Evidence Management Institute (EMI) recommends annual audits at minimum to review who has access to the evidence room. However, certain circumstances could call for more frequent audits. For example, after a former police clerk was charged with stealing $101,000 from a Florida police department’s evidence room, the agency increased audit frequency from annually to quarterly.

Electronic key control systems make it easier to conduct regular audits, as they offer extensive key control reports at your desired frequency (hourly, daily, monthly, annually, etc.). If you use secure lockers with your key control system, you can also track who’s accessed the lockers and why.

Proactively implementing key control technology demonstrates that your department has the appropriate protocol in place, helping you maintain professional standards.

Support Strict Staff Access Controls

Maintaining security requires making sure only property room personnel can access keys. If you don’t, your agency could be cited for a deficiency in an audit. For example, when one police department’s evidence room was audited by the California Department of Justice, the investigation revealed that various employees over the past decade had access to the room, with no clear record of current keyholders. In addition, the evidence room didn’t require employees to sign in and out when accessing the room.

According to EMI, evidence management units must maintain precise, up-to-date records of physical keys and keyless access cards, including:

• Identification numbers
• Inventory of physical keys and keyless access cards
• Current and former keyholders
• Issuance and return dates

Key control systems help meet these requirements by:

• Logging all keys and access cards stored in the system
• Using permission levels to determine who can access which keys or assets
• Recording a user’s system activity
• Making it easy to revoke an employee’s user account in the key control system when they leave the department

By implementing these measures, you can maintain strict staff access controls and mitigate potential audit deficiencies.

Enhance After-Hours Security

To prevent unauthorized entry to the evidence room, after-hours access controls are vital. If non-evidence management personnel need to access the evidence room during off-duty hours, EMI recommends requiring evidence management personnel to escort them.

If no escort is available, a system administrator can facilitate keyless access. Alternatively, if access requires physical keys, a key control system can provide secure access to those keys. EMI cautions against storing emergency keys outside a key control system.

By enforcing these guidelines, you can help ensure that only trained personnel with a legitimate reason enter the evidence room outside regular operating hours.

Provide Alerts and Alarms

To protect the evidence management unit, EMI recommends security alarms, especially if personnel aren’t present 24/7. These alarms should notify the evidence administrator of entry or attempted entry to any access point in the evidence storage area.

For an added layer of protection, electronic key control systems can be configured to sound an audible alarm or send a system administrator an email alert if someone attempts to access keys or assets in the system without authorization.

The Key to Stronger Evidence Integrity

Properly secured evidence is essential for ensuring justice is served and maintaining community confidence in law enforcement. Tracking and securing keys is critical to successful evidence management, and manual procedures don’t cut it.

From dual authentication protocols to system-enforced access limitations and verifiable audit trails, electronic key and asset management systems help you maintain the chain of custody and withstand tough scrutiny, whether from state audits or CALEA inspections. By enhancing evidence-handling policies with modern tools and processes, you can focus on effective operations.