As criminals become more tech-savvy, law enforcement and businesses alike are beginning to adopt more high-tech tools to help fight crime. These are some of the more interesting crime-fighting tech tools available for use today.

1) Scent Preservation Kits

Now we have the technology to use scents to track missing people. Especially useful in tracking elderly patients with dementia or children with autism, they can technically be used on anyone who has the forethought to utilize the technology.

The scent preservation kit is simple to use and only involves unscrewing the jar, using the gauze pads inside to wipe their scent from under their arms, then storing the gauze pads in the jars until a time if or when the scent is needed to aid in tracking.

2) GPS Tracking

While most people think of GPS tracking when it comes to tracking cars and trucks that may have been stolen, the benefits and usefulness of GPS tracking extends far beyond vehicles.

Banks are using GPS tracking technology in bait money to help track thieves, shipping and container companies are planting GPS devices on high-value items to deter theft (and track stolen merchandise), pharmacies are using it to catch prescription drug thieves, and police and emergency vehicles are using GPS tracking in a number of ways, including being able to quickly navigateto scenes where crimes are in progress.

3) Drones

Drones have been used for a variety of purposes over the years. One new purpose is to aid law enforcement in the evidence gathering process. But, there’s even more to it than that. During active events, drones can offer an overhead view of crime scenes and help to provide extra eyes on the situation to direct law enforcement where to safely go helping to prevent escalation in many situations and preserving lives of law enforcement and civilians alike.

4) Floroscein

This new chemical is more sensitive for detecting blood than luminol and safer to use – making it an effective tool for tracking blood, even after several cleanings, and investigating crimes.

5) Gunshot Detection Systems

Not only is the ability to detect gunshot in certain areas a significant crime deterrent for gun crimes, it is also an important safety tool – allowing law enforcement and emergency vehicles to respond more rapidly to the exact locations where gunshots were recorded.

Technology is making the world a safer place one new discovery at a time. These high-tech tools can aid local law enforcement in fighting crime, investigating crime, and formulating the appropriate responses when crimes occur. Plus, they are just the tip of the iceberg. Just imagine what new tech tools are just over the horizon for fighting crime!

An Automatic on-board recording device (AOBRD) is  an electric, electronic, electromechanical, or mechanical device capable of recording driver’s duty status information accurately and automatically as required by § 395.15. The device must be integrally synchronized with specific operations of the commercial vehicle in which it is installed and, at a minimum, must record:

• Engine Use
• Road speed
• Miles driven
• Date and Time

AOBRD’s are defined in § 395.2 and regulated in § 395.15.  These regulations were introduced in 1988 and are nearly 30 years old.  The systems that implement  AOBRD technology tend to be based on older technology and will become obsolete on December 18, 2017.

ELDs Meet FMCSA’s 395.20 Regulations

Last year in the ELD Mandate, FMCSA introduced a new class of devices, Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), that are defined in § 395.20 regulations.  These new devices are required to be used by drivers who are subject to record of duty status (RODS) regulations by December 18, 2017.

ELDs represent the latest in technology and are much more sophisticated than the soon to be outmoded AOBRDs.  Among other things ELDs must be integrally synchronized with the engine on a commercial vehicle and must capture:

• Engine power status
• Vehicle motion status
• Total miles driven
• Total engine hours
• Engine power status
• Vehicle speed
• Vehicle location

ELDs are more advanced than AOBRDs and are required to automate the capture of RODS data automatically at each duty status change, every 60 minutes while the vehicle is in motion, at engine power-on and off events, and at the beginning and end of personal use and yard moves.  In addition, ELDs must be capable of automatically transferring RODS data to FMCSA and must monitor themselves for diagnostics and malfunctions.

The LiveViewGPS ELD implementation uses an Android or iOS device that connects wirelessly to an dongle or telematics device that is connected the the vehicle bus.  To meet the vehicle monitoring requirements, vehicle data is streamed continuously from the vbus device to the Android or iOS mobile device.  The mobile device processes this information on a background thread, performs the necessary calculations, presents the information to the driver using the familiar grid chart, and synchronizes it with back office servers that run on Amazon Web services.

Around 23 million people in the United States have had a thief take at least one package from their house in recent years.  And, home surveillance cameras catch these thefts even in broad daylight.

As  U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2017 was about $115 billion (an increase of more than 3.5 percent over the second quarter of the year), according to The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, burglars are seeking these omnipresent Christmas packages this holiday season, making them a popular sought after item.

The good news, however, police departments are now taking advantage of GPS trackers to catch these “porch pirates” in the act. According to the California Campbell Police Department’s Captain, Gary Berg, they’re putting out baiting packages to catch the crooks who are taking the packages.

As the report calls them, the “Porch Pirates” usually tail the delivery drivers and once the drivers are out of sight, they nab the merchandise.

This time around, the home security cameras at Rick Deckman’s house cause the act in real-time. Deckman said the thief tailed a driver of United Parcel Service (UPS) to his home in Malibu in broad daylight and grabbed the two packages he had out at his front door.

Deckman told NBC News that he was blown away. He said he couldn’t believe that this happened to him.

For Deckman and other consumers, shopping online has always been a convenience, but now no longer outweighs the drawbacks of their packages being possibly stolen. Leaders in the industry have made a commitment to address this problem since public confidence in security is crucial in the business model of the mail delivery industry.

Jeff Rossen, TODAY’s national investigative correspondent, demonstrated his GPS tracking technology by snatching a bait package the Campbell police planted at a doorstep. After taking the package, he didn’t tell police where he was going.

However, since the package contained the GPS tracker, Rossen didn’t need to tell them where he went off to. It only took moments before police caught up with him and stopped his car, despite taking a back road and indirect route to a secluded park. Berg told him that if he’d been an actual thief, he’d have already been in handcuffs.

The UPS not only anticipates it will be delivering around 630 million packages during the time period between Black Friday and New Year’s but also is providing its customers with alternate ways of receiving their packages.

The company, this past summer, proposed to expand its UPS Access Point network. This is their service that offers pickup and drop off of packages primarily at neighborhood grocery and convenience stores, delicatessens and dry cleaners to around 22,000 worldwide and 8,000 U.S. locations by the end of the year.

A company spokesman for UPS, made a statement to NBC News, acknowledging that package theft was gaining spotlight as more cases of stolen packages are being caught by similar home surveillance technology like Deckman’s as well as posts on social media platforms by victims in some cases.

The spokesman said that along with Access Point, UPS customers could also go online and contact drivers to indicate their alternative drop-off location choices.

Also in California, Rancho Cordova police have just recently started a program to catch thieves. Police dress up in street clothes and drive unmarked cars delivering packages that contain fake electronics and GPS technology to Sacramento suburb homes. Although there haven’t been any arrests made through this program as of yet, officials do say they think these decoy packages could very well help deter and even stop future thefts, according to Deputy Matthew Deaux.

And, Deaux told NBC News that the more potential thieves know they’re doing this, the less inclined they’ll be to do it.