Pathfinder Labs develops software that specializes in empowering law enforcement agencies and investigators to apprehend criminals and rescue victims of child abuse.

The New Zealand-headquartered company is staffed by professionals with diverse backgrounds and expertise, including counter-terrorism, online child abuse investigations, industrial espionage, digital forensics and more, spanning both the government and private sectors.

Last July, I was thrilled to welcome Pathfinder Labs' CEO Bree Atkinson, as well as co-founder and DevOps Architect, Peter Pilley to MongoDB .local Sydney where they shared more about the company's innovative solutions powered by MongoDB.

Those solutions are deployed and utilized by prestigious organizations on a global scale, including Interpol.

Pathfinder Labs' main product, Paradigm, has been built on MongoDB Atlas and runs on AWS. The tool-which relies on MongoDB's developer data platform and document database model to sift through complex and continually growing numbers of data sets-helps collect, gather, and convert data into actionable decisions for law enforcement professionals.

Pilley explained that Paradigm was "made by investigators, for investigators."

Paradigm is designed to present the information it helps gather in a way that will support a successful prosecution and outcome at trial.

MongoDB Atlas enables Pathfinder Labs to tame the chaos arising from the data sets created and gathered throughout an investigation. MongoDB's scalability and automation capabilities are particularly helpful in this regard.

Powered by MongoDB Atlas, Paradigm can also easily identify similarities between cases, and uncover unique insights by bringing together information from disparate data sources. This could, for example, be about bringing together geolocalization data and metadata from an image, or identifying similar case patterns from law enforcement agencies operating in different states or countries.
Ultimately, Paradigm simplifies evidence gathering and analysis, integrates external data sources and vendors, future-proof investigation methods, and helps minimize overall costs. Its capabilities are unlocking a whole new generation of data-driven investigative capabilities.

During the presentation, Pilley used the example of the case of a missing female in the United States: it took a team of three investigators 12 months to solve the case. Using Paradigm, PathfinderLabs was able to solve that same case in less than an hour.

"With Paradigm, we were able to feed some extra information and solve the case in 40 minutes. MongoDB Atlas allowed us to make quick decisions and present information to investigators in the most efficient way."

Pathfinder Labs also incorporates AI capabilities, including MongoDB Vector Search, which help identify which information is particularly relevant, select specific data points that can be used at a strategic point in time, connect data from one case to another, and identify what information might be missing.

MongoDB Atlas Vector Search helps Pathfinder match images and details in images (i.e. people, objects), classify documents and text, and to build better search experiences for users via semantic search.

"I was super excited when [Atlas Vector Search] came out. The fact that I can now have it as part of my standard workflow without having to deploy other kits all the time to support our vector searches has been an absolute game changer," added Pilley.

Finally, the team has seen great value in MongoDB's Performance Adviser and Schema Anti Patterns features: "The performance Adviser alone has solved many problems," concluded Pilley.

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