£15k London crime reporting app would help deal with 18,000 police calls a day

Posted by GLA Conservatives in News   Share2015

Oct
16

Victims should be able to report crimes and submit evidence through an official app on their mobile, according to a new report.

SmartCop urges the Met to spend £15k to develop a smartphone app which can track the location of victims via GPS in an emergency, receive photographic and video evidence, and has a real-time chat function.

The Met police received a combined 17,698 emergency ‘999’ and non-emergency ‘101’ calls every day in 2014 alone.

GLA Conservatives Assembly Member and report author Tony Arbour said:

“It’s bonkers that despite smartphones now becoming as common as the lightbulb, you still can’t contact police through something as simple as a mobile app – even though they exist for everything from finding coffee shops to checking the weather. Crime reporting apps – which are being used in countries like the US and Spain – hand higher quality evidence to police on a plate, and ultimately lead to substantial cost savings in the long term. So if you’ve been burgled, you can submit photos and videos of the incident promptly and directly to police. If you’ve been attacked at night, the police can track you using GPS. If you’re a victim of domestic abuse, you can discreetly chat to police in real time. I want to get London’s sharpest tech brains on board to build this app for our city. The public is now well and truly digital – it’s time the Met caught up.”

As a next step, the report calls for the Mayor of London to host a competition for software designers and engineers to create London’s crime reporting app.

The report: “SmartCop – A crime reporting mobile app for London” can be accessed at: glaconservatives.co.uk/scp/

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Or to save it right click 'save as' on this link glaconservatives.co.uk/scp/