Private Cop
Citizens who play for local policeman? That is not the goal of Private Cop solution. With this app, which in 2013 was developed by a cop and an entrepreneur from Twente, residents do have a digital policing notebook in their hands. This enables them to inform their environment about suspicious and alarming situations. With text, photos, drawings, films and sound recordings. And even with an SMS alert.
Bennie Beuvink, coach of the community policing work at the Eastern Police Unit in the Netherlands, devised the concept with a vision of empowerment of citizens. As eyes and ears in the streets, they typically have unique information on the local situation. Users of Private Cop then can decide for themselves whether they register and then share information with the police and other first responders, such as firefighters. Via secured files in the cloud of Private Cop, the police can then look into these records – and if necessary, take action.
“Private Cop provides benefits to citizens and the police” say both Beuvink and developer Jan Henk Reef of ICT Spirit Business Solutions. Anyone who detects suspicious situations or needs neighborly help quickly, can contact the local area immediately. Without first using a telephonesystem to approach the police, with all call menu’s and waiting times that come along in the process. The police have new channels with unstructured information, which can provide valuable pointers for law enforcement. And entrepreneurs benefit too. For example, the app can be used in shopping malls and business parks, to support cooperation. In Twente entrepreneurs have already testing the solution.
Private Cop service platform
The concept is both easy and effective in its use. Just register the information on your smartphone or tablet and share it with colleagues, neighbours or goverment agencies.
When a file report is created it can be shared via
- Skydrive
- DropBox
- Sharepoint online
- Office365 Sharepoint
You can also choose to use the heavily secured Sharepoint Online and Office365 Sharepoint environment.
If you share your Private Portal for example with government agencies, you can quickly create nice way to provide a big data researching environment for governments.
Registration is as easy as it gets. All major standard devices are supported and when starting the app, a new file can be created directly. When clicking on one of the files, the contents of the file is displayed on the right on the screen. The oldest item in a file is at the bottom, and the newest entry at the top. For each item it is possibile to add a title, description and tags. The tags are chosen from a list of tags on Private Portal and is maintained. Location and timing information can be added by the app and can not be changed.
PrivateCopApp Case Files are sent from the app via email or any other app that can handle ZIP files: Dropbox, Skydrive, SkydrivePro. All files will be attached as one ZIP to a predefined Private Portal (within Sharepoint, Skydrive or Office365). If this Private Portal meets the structure, the files and associated metadata will be put in the correct structure.
Within the portal, the following information is displayed and maintained:
Files: Find files that have been posted by the various participants
Alarms: any alarm that is sent by the user
WhatsCop: communication between the participants. These are messages with a lower priority than the alarms
Participants: all participants in this private portal
Tags: tags such as those used within this portal
Types of alarms: alarms such as those available in the app and used for quickly sending the alarms
Sources: Private Cop, App, Secondant (CCV)
Questions about this article
What is Private Cop?
Private Cop is a Dutch app that works as a digital policing notebook for residents. They can record suspicious situations with text, photos, video and sound and share them with neighbours, colleagues, the police or other first responders.
Is Private Cop meant to make citizens act as police officers?
No. The article says citizens playing local policeman is not the goal; the idea is to empower residents as eyes and ears in the street, who decide themselves whether to share information with the police.
How does the police get access to Private Cop reports?
Reports are bundled as ZIP files and sent to a Private Portal in the cloud, such as SharePoint or Office365. The police can look into these records there and take action if necessary.
Questions and answers added in 2026, based on the article above.