Police Scotland has won an Esri Special Achievement in GIS Award for transforming its search operations for finding missing people, securing Royal visits and protecting major events.
Esri’s GIS technology is helping to improve decision-making and efficiency of security operations.
Recognised innovations include mobile mapping apps for field officers and interactive map dashboards for search advisers to direct operations. Replacing paper maps, manual notes and hand-coloured search areas, the digital approach is delivering better communication, real-time tasking of search teams and significant time and cost savings.
Police Scotland received the award at Esri’s annual User Conference in San Diego, one of the world’s largest geospatial industry events, attended by around 20,000 people from more than 100 countries. Winners are chosen by Esri President Jack Dangermond for setting new standards in the global GIS community.
Training for almost 300 users of the new applications has just been completed and the system was most recently used at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July 2026. Covering more than 28,000 square miles across urban, rural, island and remote communities, Police Scotland has 23,000 officers and staff.
Police Scotland modernises search operations with Esri GIS | GeoConnexion
