The Dubai Public Prosecution (DPP) was established in 1992 to achieve judicial justice with respect to the public rights of the Emirates of Dubai. DPP is the only authority to initiate the criminal cases and it is part of the judicial body as it undertakes the authority of investigation and imposing charges as well as referring the accused person to the competent court if involvement in the crime is proven. The DPP also supervises over the stages of the case in the criminal courts.

DPP relies in its work on simple procedures and quick action in a way that does not affect the proper administration of justice as it serves the public and accomplishes its objective of achieving justice.

With the population growth in the UAE which went exponential since 2005, the inbound work for DPP has ever since increased in a similar trajectory. This has resulted in massive amounts of paper files that were difficult to manage, store, and retrieve, not to mention incidences of lost or misplaced files.

Realising the importance of digitising all the files, DPP acquired document capturing solution ArcMate Capture® from NVSSoft® and started scanning the documents internally. The pace however was very slow, with the internal teams being able to digitise less than 50 files a day. Organising and storing the paper files after scanning was also inconsistent. DPP also had specific requirements with regards to releasing the scanned images to the file system in a specific format and naming and filing convention to be able to retrieve them from their case management system.

Following a successful Proof of Concept (POC), NVSSoft® UAE was hired by DPP to perform backlog scanning of over 10 million pages pertaining to five years worth of files. The project was carried out using NVSSoft®’s ArcMate Capture® and involved a number of scanning, indexing, automatic scripts, and quality control stations to avoid bottlenecks and ensure optimal throughput of 1000 files per day, each containing an average of 50 pages. Custom scripting was done to generate codes based on case number, type, and date, and to generate a custom folder structure on the file system during the release stage. The system was also implemented for on-going scanning at two primary locations for DPP.

Source paper files were arranged and numbered in boxes and missing files that were still in circulation are being located, scanned, and added to their respective locations.

While the scanning was taking place, the files were starting to become available for retrieval through the integration with the case management system, which increased the productivity and efficiency of the staff at DPP.

DPP also enjoyed savings in cost and time and faster compliance with the requirements of the Dubai eGovernment.