How the Hawaii Department of Law Enforcement Uses Cloudwick to Modernize Legislative Affairs and Build the Ultimate Data Foundation

As a trusted and highly-recommended vendor partner in the AWS ecosystem, Cloudwick’s first task with DLE was to build an AWS “landing zone” to serve as DLE’s hub for all workloads, apps, data security and access, governance, and more.

If all the other projects mentioned in this case study are the house, the AWS landing zone is the foundation.

Cloudwick set up the AWS ecosystem, built the landing zone, established governance for Aegis compliance, and supported Brandon with onboarding and access for the AWS subaccounts of all vendors DLE works with—including Cloudwick, Mark43, SaferWatch, Databricks, Scout, and more. Effectively, Cloudwick operated like the DLE’s cloud ops team, not only building the landing zone but also managing it in a leaner, more cost-effective manner than if DLE had hired an equivalent in-house team.

Asuka said this was especially beneficial for his agency, as finding and hiring for that kind of technical talent (CloudOps, DevOps, DataOps, Enterprise Architect, etc.) in a government agency in Hawaii is challenging. Most residents with those skill sets choose to work in the far more lucrative private sector.

By partnering with Cloudwick, Asuka and the DLE team were able to access a world-class technical team, move fast, and build a highly sophisticated AWS landing zone and data foundation for far less than hiring an in-house team.

Most importantly, with Cloudwick managing DLE’s AWS ecosystem, the DLE team can focus its limited in-house IT resources on setting up specialized law enforcement systems like imaging computers, networks, and critical infrastructure in DLE buildings and vehicles.

“It’s difficult to manage a cloud environment on top of the IT team’s typical daily tasks, especially as a new department,” Asuka said. “Cloudwick has streamlined that process for us, allowing us to focus on serving and protecting citizens.”

Similarly, Cloudwick also built a data warehouse for DLE and migrated all of the data from DLE’s legacy records management system into the warehouse.

Now, Asuka and his team can find all their resources in one place and determine what to keep and what to get rid of. The data warehouse will also make it possible for DLE to transport that information to their Computer-Aided Design (CAD) system and Records Management System (RMS) in the future.

This is another critical piece of DLE’s new data foundation, on which they can build for years to come.

With the sheer number of records DLE needed to migrate, Asuka said if the department had had to manually check every record, it would have required 20-30 sworn officers. With Cloudwick’s system, DLE only needed three deputies to help qualify the historical records.

“It was a huge savings for us in terms of money and time,” Asuka said.

As most state government agencies can attest, legislative affairs (while extremely important) can require a massive amount of an agency’s time, energy, and resources during the legislative session.

So when Asuka partnered with Cloudwick, he knew he wanted to use Cloudwick’s flagship Amorphic data platform to modernize the process—enhancing the agency’s management, analysis, and response to public bills and related legislative documents.

To help, DLE implemented Cloudwick’s Amorphic GenAI Legislative Bills Solution, an AI-powered platform that automates the ingestion, enrichment, and analysis of legislative documents, along with generating draft testimonies.

To say the project has been a success would be a massive understatement. While other Hawaii state government agencies still require a team of at least 20 people to handle legislative affairs (tracking bills, writing testimony, approving testimony, testifying before the legislature, etc.), DLE does it all with four.

That adds up to hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars saved. And this year, DLE got more funding and more bills passed than in any previous year.

“I would estimate a 90 percent reduction in the workforce required to complete day-to-day legislative tasks during session,” Asuksa said. “It allows the majority of our department to focus on protecting the community.”

In the state of Hawaii, illegally imported fireworks present a significant public safety issue—along with a major logistical challenge.

In the past, it’s been nearly impossible for law enforcement and fire departments to track illegal fireworks shipments into Hawaii, largely because there was no central data hub that all agencies could access to know if a shipment was legal or not.

Adding to the complexity is that, historically, county sheriff departments have been the main law enforcement branch on the islands. But with the formation of the DLE, there have been some political growing pains as the new state agency coordinates with the counties on the fireworks issue.

To help solve the transparency problem, Asuka worked with Cloudwick to build the PALMS app, a statewide permitting and licensing management system for all legal fireworks importers, resellers, and large displays. Now, all Hawaii fire and police agencies can access this data—in one place—to quickly determine if a fireworks shipment is legal when it arrives (likely by port).

In the future, Asuka also wants to loop in private shipping companies to track the inventory of legal fireworks vendors and trigger alerts if any illicit shipments are detected before reaching Hawaiian ports. It’s the perfect example of a public/private partnership centered on transparent, trusted data in one accessible place.

Asuka says he thinks DLE’s PALMS system (built by Cloudwick) could serve as a template for other statewide public-safety systems, like gun registration, concealed carry permits, etc.

“We're really interested in not only providing efficiencies within our department but how DLE can help the state as a whole become more efficient. Taxpayer dollars go furthest when a single entity can help transform processes across the entire state,” Asuka said.