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UK Police Create Facebook App For Sending In Tips

from the e-snitch dept

Mon, Apr 21st 2008 1:45am — Mike Masnick

We've heard plenty of stories about police using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to catch criminals who brag about their crimes on these social networks, but Alimas points us to a story about how police in Manchester are going much further. They've created a whole Facebook application designed to let people submit information and (they hope) help the police solve crimes. The app has a running news feed of stories about crimes, sometimes with requests for help in getting tips or even identifying people in a surveillance cam video. While some people may think of it as an "e-snitch" program, it's interesting to see the police go this far in trying to tap into a social network, and seems a lot more useful than just trolling social networks for dumb criminals. It's nice to see the police realizing that part of a social network is the two-way communication aspect, rather than just monitoring what's happening.

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Filed Under: facebook app, manchester, police, uk
Companies: facebook

7 Comments

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Max Powers, 21 Apr 2008 @ 2:10am

Crime Busters
I agree with you 100% on this. I hope this is a huge success and will spread to every city. Living in the Los Aneles area I see news stories everyday of shootings, robberies, and other types of crime. Just flashing a survellance tape for a few seconds on TV just isn't enough.
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Alex, 21 Apr 2008 @ 3:01am

The problem...
... may be that the kind of people that would, most likely, give the best tips are the kind of people that may not want their contacts to see that they have e-snitch installed on their profile.
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Powerkor, 21 Apr 2008 @ 5:06am

Its a good idea, and a step in the right direction for application development. I'm tired of seeing all the useless apps Facebook offers. E-snitch is a good start. I want to see it catch a crook, that will make us all smile.
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Jake, 21 Apr 2008 @ 5:46am

I'm somewhat dubious about how much use it will be -further to Alex's point, I bet they'll have a huge number of useless, false and outdated tips to sift through before they get anything of value- but it's certainly worth a try.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Apr 2008 @ 6:19am

Big Brother is watching you from the Ministry of Love.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Love
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gr, 21 Apr 2008 @ 6:54am

Tips aren't their only source of data.
This raises some civil liberties problems, given how much of your and your friends' data apps can see.
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Jen, 9 Apr 2009 @ 11:42am

it needs to be anonymous to work
They need to use something like tip411 which is truly anonymous for people to actually give legitimate tips. Michigan City is doing it the right way and with lots of success, http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/41534057.html. Good luck to the UK police however.
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