From Tradition to Transformation: Empowering Officers in the Digital Era

From Tradition to Transformation: Empowering Officers in the Digital Era

Digital transformation took centre stage at the ANZPAA Police Conference 2025, where a panel unpacked what it really takes to modernise policing in a rapidly digitising world.

With agencies under pressure to innovate fast while staying grounded in frontline realities, the session—featuring Ms Laura Poidevin (Chief Digital Officer, Queensland Police Service), Acting Assistant Commissioner John Atkin (Northern Territory Police), Mr Vishal Dhir (Senior Vice President, Axon) and Mr Raul Aguilar (Senior Director, Law Enforcement Partnerships, Auror) delivered a punchy, future-focused discussion on how real progress happens: through collaboration, co-design and an unwavering focus on people.

Ms Poidevin set the tone by championing co-design, arguing that technology must be shaped with frontline officers, partners and communities, not delivered to them. She noted that transformation succeeds when technology is shaped around real behaviours rather than technical specifications, and when multidisciplinary teams, including vendors, collaborate from the very beginning.

A/AC Atkin reinforced this, noting that policing is far from uniform. “People use the technology differently depending on what role they’re doing within the police force,” he said. A change that helps one group may burden another, making deep stakeholder engagement essential. He acknowledged the tension between the urgency to innovate and the realities of public-sector pace: comprehensive requirements gathering takes time, but skipping it leads to costly missteps.

Mr Dhir highlighted the value of iterative design and diversity of thought: “It’s really important to start getting that diversity of thought into those conversations so that… you can design a little bit better and different and think about an outcome in a very different way.”

A/AC Atkin echoed this mindset, advocating for a more experimental culture where not every initiative needs to be perfect on first deployment. “Quite often if a thing is implemented and fails, people are looking for someone to blame instead of looking for a lesson that can be learned out of it,” he said, adding that ANZPAA’s cross-jurisdictional visibility helps agencies learn from one another and avoid repeating mistakes. “Relationships with leaders is a critical part of that.”

Mr Aguilar also emphasised the value of sharing lessons learned: “If enhancements can help other retailers, we embrace that thought and we bring it back to our product engineering teams… How will this change help impact the whole community?”

The discussion then turned to the power of interoperability and that innovation happens faster when platforms are open and built to integrate. Ms Poidevin mentioned: “There isn't one solution that’s going to solve all of our problems. It’s about how we partner, work through challenges and make those connections.”

A/AC Atkin noted that agencies are already mapping technologies and vendors across jurisdictions, enabling a clearer picture of the digital ecosystem and supporting more strategic partnerships. The recently released Australia New Zealand Digital Collaborative Framework is poised to accelerate this further, creating a shared blueprint for cross-jurisdictional digital progress. It is designed to support and align jurisdictional efforts in digital transformation. It provides a foundation for ongoing partnerships and collaboration to drive collective innovation and deliver consistent, effective and modern digital policing solutions.”

This editorial draws directly from the ANZPAA Police Conference 2025 presentation by Laura Poidevin (Chief Digital Officer, Queensland Police Service), Acting Assistant Commissioner John Atkin (Northern Territory Police), Raul O. Aguilar (Senior Director of Law Enforcement Partnerships, Auror), Vishal Dhir (Senior Vice President, Axon).

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