Everyone has a camera in their pocket these days. It’s just part of life to snap photos of your pet being adorable, take vacation selfies, or even immortalize the great meal you’re about to eat. That goes for most of us—even people taking part in criminal activities.

As an investigator or analyst, you don’t need us to tell you how often evidence ends up buried on someone’s camera roll, mixed in with all their other photos of everyday life. We know you’ve spent hours manually sifting through thousands of photos to find a single crucial piece of evidence—a real-life needle-in-a-haystack scenario. Who’s got time for that? (We’re exhausted just thinking about it!)

Image Recognition Basics

PLX has a new Image Recognition feature that makes quick work of cases involving large numbers of digital photos. The feature is designed to eliminate the need for human eyes to scour photos for evidence. All you have to do is upload the file, let the software sort and tag the photos—and there you have it! Say goodbye to hunting through haystacks, and hello to neon signs pointing to what you’re looking for.

Dive Deeper with an Example

Imagine you’re dealing with a case in which a suspect has denied owning a specific firearm. You’re able to pull photos from their phone, but there are over 90,000 to go through. Time to grab a coffee and settle in for the long haul, right? Wrong! With PLX’s Image Recognition feature, you’re able to let the AI do the heavy lifting for you.

• Step one: upload all 90,000 photos into PLX with a single click.
• Once the results are ready, you’re left with 30 photos that fit the category “weapons.”
• Want more specific results? No problem. Drill down further by checking the tags added to the photos in that category. In this case, you’ve now got six photos tagged “gun.”

And that’s it! PLX has just cut 90,000 photos down to six! Now you can take a look at those six photos, find your firearm…and move on to more important things.

What’s Next?

This article only scratches the surface of PLX and Image Recognition. Looking for a more in-depth understanding of what our favorite new feature can do? Our team would be happy to provide you with a tour.  Contact us for a personal demo now!