Examples of police, researchers and citizens putting social media to good use.
– This aricle was published earlier on The Next Web – 76.2% of abducted children who were murdered in the US were found dead within the first four hours. It’s a terrifying statistic I recently learned listening to the podcast In the Dark, about the kidnapping and murder of 11-year old Jacob…
From WhatsApp community groups to Bellingcat. The police feel citizens can play an important part in their investigative work. TNO researcher Arnout de Vries advises the police in The Netherlands on matters relating to citizen participation. Because investigations by citizens involve some…
Should we be able to say what we want online? Politics, cyber-bullying and hate speech. The balance between free speech and online abuse is getting harder to define and police. What can and should be done to tackle it In this Data Debate we will discuss trolling: the practice of online…
“Foul!” yells Lewis, aka Traffic Droid, from his bicycle before brandishing a red card in the face of a dumbfounded delivery driver. The scene is not a football pitch, rather the middle of a London street, where Lewis, alias the “Traffic Droid”, is busy enforcing the law. The 51-year-old is one…
The second season of the television programme Hunted opens on Monday 6 November (AvroTros, NPO3). In this programme, 14 “fugitives” spend 21 days trying to escape capture by a team of expert professional investigators. This season the “hunters” will be supported by QUIN, a predictive model for…
Technology has revolutionized policing practices and at the same time it has facilitated criminality. The Dark Web has emerged as a digital space where content has been intentionally concealed and users can surf anonymously. It is used for several legitimate purposes, such as to perform…
It’s every parent’s nightmare: you become distracted for a few seconds and suddenly your toddler has disappeared. At times like that, the police quickly arrive on the scene. But it is very difficult for them to work out exactly what has happened. That’s where Real-Time Intelligence (RTI) comes…
Processing real time intelligence -providing actual and relevant information at the right time- is key to security organisations. Real Time Intelligence (RTI) enhances the abillity of making operational decisions in real-time based on a wide range of field data. Streamlining data saves time,…
Law enforcement around the world, including the Netherlands, is currently experimenting with predictive policing: policing based on crime predictions. Big Data on past crimes and the help of sophisticated machine learning enable police to use reliable predictions about when and where the next…
A policeman in the Overijssel town of Kampen has used Twitter to find out what locals think he should do about people cycling in pedestrian only areas. Jean Louis Becker placed an online poll on the social media platform to find out if people who cycle through a pedestrian area should be warned…
