August 2019
With national outcry over lost and untested sexual assault kits continuing, Primary Marking Systems, Inc. in St. Peters, Missouri, has been issued its 6th patent on systems and methods for collecting and tracking evidence including Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) evidence.
“Communities that have tested backlogged sexual assault kits have proven that testing DNA evidence identifies and aids in the prosecution of serial rapists,” said Tim McIntyre, Vice President of Government Solutions for Primary Marking Systems. “We track a pizza to your doorstep or Lysol anywhere in the world, it is absurd that hundreds of thousands of sexual assault kits get lost or ignored when the technology exists to track and monitor the process.”
The recently awarded patent is US #10,346,491 B1. It grants Primary Marking exclusive rights to sell their system for tagging, organizing and tracking Sexual Assault evidence during an investigation with evidence kits and mobile communication devices. The eTWIST® system provides mobile evidence tracking capabilities and the eSAFE™ system, can deploy highly sophisticated algorithms coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) to connect all stakeholders.
In Missouri alone, an estimated amount of more than 5,000 untested sexual assault kits have been identified. A task force in the attorney general’s office has been working more than a year to find all the untested kits. It has been a challenge that required collecting information from 114 individual counties and the City of St. Louis.
According to McIntyre, what is most important about Primary Marking’s eTWIST® and eSAFE™ systems is that all important individual, respective evidentiary components are linked together through their familiar hierarchical relationships, which produces an immutable chain of custody connected in a central data repository. The systems not only give timely alerts for due dates, they improve the state’s ability to audit kits. The improved documentation of the chain of custody also help prosecutors.
With Primary Marking’s solutions, states have access to cutting edge technologies like blockchain and voice recognition to prove the kit, all components of the kit, and related evidence like blood samples and clothing bags can be managed for more effective prosecution. With eSAFE™ survivors can see major milestones achievements and evidence transfers.
Primary Marking is putting their 23 years’ experience in tracking valuable assets in a variety of industries to work for the government sector. Making kits traceable helps with compliance, makes auditing easy and prevents tampering.